Tell Me About Meat Rabbits

[SillyChicken]

We just processed 4 of our older rabbits Sunday. I deboned them and we cut them up and canned the meat. We were curious how they turned out and opened a jar lastnight for dinner......... mmmmm mmmm tastey, tender and full of flavor! I highly recommend canning!

 

[Anianna]

Where can I find info about canning meat? I'd like to do this, too, but I haven't learned all that yet. We get so much deer and rabbit we are thinking of getting a second freezer.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

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[Anianna]

Thank you, I will look into it. I almost bought a pressure canner last year, but I was intimidated by my lack of familiarity with canning in general. I think I will give it a try this year.

 

[llrumsey]

I am breeding a cross called baby beef, california, new zealand and flemish giant. The california and new zealand for the tender meat and the flemish giant for larger size. The flemish has a stringy meat but mixed with the other 2 the rabbit has better meat.

I currently have 7 bucks, 7 does and 3 litters. I do things a little different than alot of breeders, I let my does run in the rabbit house and keep a buck down with them all the time, I change bucks about every 2 weeks. This system seems to work well for me. My does are haveing larger litters than they did before and more healthy, when the babies get old enough to be sexed the boys go into a cage, and either used as a breeding male or food. The females are used mostly for breeding.

I was having a problem with my does not keeping live litters before and when I didnt get butchering done and found one of my does that was on the floor had a live litter and was doing great I decided to put all my does on the floors.

But I'm sure that wouldnt work for everyone but it seems to for me.

Good luck.

 

[RockGardenRabbits]

Hello.

My husband and I raise rabbits for meat predominantly to be more sustainable on our small property. Their Manure is AMAZING! And I would keep rabbits just for the boost they give my garden.
I have a New Zealand White Doe, California Doe, Creme D'Argent Doe and Champagne D'Argent Doe. I have a New Zealand Buck and a Champagne D'Argent Buck. At first we bought into the whole New Zealand and Californias being the best meat rabbits but it depends what you want to do. For us.... We have found that going with the heritage breeds (The D'Argents) is more cost effective as the commercially popular rabbits are heavy eaters on pellets and do not seem to handle greens and hay as well as the heritage breeds. My Creme is healthy and thriving and consumes half the pellets my New Zealand and Cal does consume. Of course we are very CAREFUL as to what we feed them and monitor their stools but over time we hope to create a truly sustainable rabbit for our property, that may perhaps have a slower grow out rate than the commercial NZ and Cal rabbits but a rabbit that will be happy and sustainable on our small property with their feed being produced from garden by-product. What I mean by that is, I grow Sunchokes instead of Potatos so I can feed the greens to the rabbits, I sow my garden over with winter wheat so i can feed that back to the rabbits, thus they give me compost to put on the garden and so on and so on.
I also have two English Angoras for wool, they are amazing! Sometimes I will breed one of my does to an outside stud for more purebred babies and then I will let go of my top babies so they can go on to be shown and enrich the local gene pool. All of my stock came pedigreed and I mostly cross breed my rabbits for Hybrid Vigor.
So far our herd is very healthy! and we have reduced our initial amount of grain / pound of meat by 70%. When we do breed purebred rabbits for show, they are well placed and snapped up by local breeders.