Recently I teased you all with a picture of some ears, so let me explain: My dear husband has desired to become more self sustaining as far as feeding our family is concerned. I am excited about what this will mean for our family; our boys and perhaps one day their families as well. Although there will be more work here than either of our boys have ever experienced when we lived in North Carolina, it will be a simpler more back to the basics kind of life. The property we bought came with all these cages we have used thus far as well a the feeders for the rabbits - what a blessing that has been!
We started out as you all know with 10 baby chicks which is the humble beginnings to our "farming" foundation. Just a couple of weeks ago I made contact with a Californian and New Zealand Rabbit breeder. These are the top breeds for meat production, so after talking with Bill on several occasions, I made an appointment to see and purchase some of his rabbits. I left with two does and one buck to start with. We are hoping that we can get one more of his bucks this week.
The rabbits are sweet. They are soft. They are beautiful. They are a food source. I am totally alright with that. I do hold the rabbits twice each day and I am sure I will get close to them over time. They will be with us as breeders for several years. We will always have 4 or 6 breeder rabbits and many kits waiting to reach fryer age or perhaps stew age at any given time if things proceed as has been planned. Rabbits can breed 4 times a year, hopefully giving birth to 10 to 12 kits each time. The kits will be ready for butchering anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks of age.
FYI: Just an interesting bit of information you may find curious: Do not feed rabbits lettuce! Lettuce will give your rabbits diarrhea and that can be fatal for the critters. Isn't it funny how all of the cartoons or advertisements show lettuce being fed to rabbits as a great and favorite source of food? If you do by some chance find your rabbit has diarrhea you can feed him/her some Weeping Willow leaves which will clear this problem right up!
WOW, Lynnie, I've learned so much from this short post! The rabbits are BEAUTIFUL. I grew up on a dairy farm...so eating chickens, and beef came natural to me. And I love rabbit...but I seriously don't think I could eat a rabbit I'd looked into the eyes of. We had friends who raised rabbits for that purpose and we would buy from them...the meat was excellent. The key was that I hadn't raised them. :-) I SO ADMIRE you for being able to do this.
ReplyDeleteAND I DEFINITELY admire your husband's desire to become as self sufficient as possible by using your land to raise food and animals. There is nothing like it! :-)
Well my soon to be daughterinlove wanted to name them.. so they do have names as well. My dear husband commented that he wasn't into naming the food. LOL.
ReplyDeleteThe awesome thing about raising rabbits is that you can supplement their food with some items from garden so cost is min to raise them. You get an excellent meat source, you can use their pelts or sell them, and you can also use or sell their poo!
I am really enjoying your farming posts Lynnie. We finally got around to watching Food, Inc. and needless-to-say, we are even more interested in becoming self-sustaining than we were before watching. So I'm reading your progress with GREAT interest. Oh, and the bunnies are really, really cute. :-)
ReplyDelete