The Reasons
We chose rabbits as a meat animal for a few reasons. The scent factor. Space needed. The ease of use, cooking uses. The cuteness issue.
The Scent Factor
Meat rabbits were the second animal, if you don’t count dogs, that we got when we first started homesteading. We had a small house on .27 of an acre and wanted to raise some of our own meat. But on such small acreage whatever we got was going to be nice and cozy next to our home. We had a six bird flock of laying hens and at first thought we might try out meat chickens. When we started to do our research, and found out how messy and smelly they can get, we didn’t want that so close to the house.
Rabbits are very clean. They poop and pee alot, don’t get me wrong, but they’re much more orderly about it. Rabbits generally pick a corner as the bathroom corner and that’s where they do their business so it’s easy to clean up. Also the poop of a healthy rabbit is a nice little round ball that can go straight into your garden and as long as the urine is going into the dirt not soaking into something porous there isn’t much smell at all. Since they had to right next to our bedroom window that was a major factor.
Space Needed
A doe, grown female rabbit, needs about 2 feet by 3 feet of space for her and her kits, baby rabbits. A buck, grown male, can do with less but it’s easier to just make all your cages the same size. I give my does a bit more room then is recommended because my nesting box is attached to the side of the 2’x3′ cage and is about 2 foot by 1 foot. Having such a small available foot print for raising livestock rabbits were the perfect solution. The first cage my husband built for me was a six hole, with tilted trays, and gutters for the waste. It worked very well for our rabbit trio, two does and one buck. Each adult rabbit had their own cage. I had 3 extra cages for growing out litters. My six cages only had a footprint of about 7.5 feet by 3 feet.
ease of use, Cooking Rabbit
One of the best parts of raising rabbits for meat is that you already have recipes for it, you just didn’t know it. Do you have a favorite chicken recipie, use it for rabbit. Rabbit has a flavor and texture very close to chicken, there has been more than once that I made rabbit and my husband didn’t realize what he was eating was rabbit. Once he even said of a new recipe, “This would be really good with rabbit.” My reply was, “It is rabbit.” He thought it was hilarious. The only real difference between rabbit and chicken is that the rabbit is leaner. Rabbit will dry out faster than chicken, so it’s best to keep it moist. Crockpot chicken recipes are great for rabbit and once you get more accustomed to cooking rabbit give pan frying a try, you wont regret it.
The ‘hardest’ adjustment I have found with cooking rabbit is the bones. Having eaten chicken most of our lives, be it Kentucky fried or home made, we know what the thigh, wing, leg, and breast bones are shaped like, and it’s easy to eat around them. Rabbits are different, not harder, just different. It wont take you and your family long to figure it out but there is a learning curve there.
The Cuteness Issue
Now the first thing everyone will say when they hear you have meat rabbits is, “But they’re so cute! How could you possibly do that?” The truth is I was a bit worried myself about that in the beginning. Go into it knowing they have a purpose, and that the purpose is to feed your family not be your pet. Having the right mindset will help from the start. It also helps to divide up the duties if you can. I take care of the rabbits, from feeding to breeding, and my husband is in charge of processing them when they are 9 – 12 weeks old. What it boiled down to for us is how much meat we could grow on our small acreage with rabbits.