Raise Rabbits as Food Storage

Great article. Rabbits are awesome for prepper livestock, quiet, easy to raise, and eat lots of things. I’ve been raising them for our food for many years. Keeping track of breeding can be a bit much, though. We use an app to to keep track of everything, it is called Hutch, and it makes rabbit records easy.

Our first batch of kits are ready to wean. It won’t be too long before they’re ready to butcher. What I’d like is a good resource for recipes. I’d like to thank Emergency Essentials for providing this source of information.

It’s all perspective…. In a survival situation, or hyper inflation, rabbits are a great for supporting a families food source. Besides, I’ve never hunted cats… I prefer a more readily available food source….. So tell us, how is cat as food (your suggestion).

You do realize the forum to which you are responding?? This is about raising food. If you really want to get into it, Science has proven that all plants have energy that responds to different environments, music and trees even sleep at night…..so if you are worried about hurting a food source, that should also include vegetables/plants….. This is about survival.

You won’t make it long I’m sure if people were talking about eating cats that wouldn’t sit well either

Cheryl I like your comments. I felt they were very informative as well as confirming of other people’s comments. Do you have a website or can this be emailed to me. Thank you. Also, does the rabbit actually taste like a dessert w/half and half and cinnamon?

I would say that is a safe assumption.

I lived in England for 5 years. In even the smallest market the meat section had beef, pork, chicken, fish, mutton/lamb, and RABBIT! Always. In every market. Rabbit is very easy to clean and takes less than a minute from death row to freezer. I have seen them in Farmers Markets, sold live to stay out of the trouble with the regulators. They then provided a free butchering service for your recently purchased meat.

THANKS TO ALL ! where I live wild rabbits are

plentiful and I have been thinking I need to check into how to "make it quick " and how to clean them – just incase we get hungry- I already throw scraps out to them and talk to STEW- they are all stew to me- so any advice for a planner like me- the kill- cook plan ?THANKS AGAIN to ALL

Christie and Linda: You’ll eat cows, chickens, fish but draw the line at rabbits? Why, because they’re cuter? I’ll bet bet in an emergency situation where your children are hungry you’ll be just fine with feeding them rabbit. Thank you, Emergency Essentials, for providing great information.

Eat your young

Rabbits are for livestock and are easier to butcher than fowl with all those feathers. You can stretch and sell or trade the the hide and the meat isn’t bad. Felines on the other hand have a raunchy nasty taste and you have to worry about parasites as well as worms even if the vet sees them regularly. Eat rabbit the other red meat.

Linda…please do.

I think that raising rabbits for meat helps children and adults appreciate the meat that we eat and take for granted every day. I grew up on a small farm with chickens, ducks, goats and rabbits, all of which we ate at one time or another.

It is better not to name your meat rabbits cutesy pet names. That just makes it more difficult when butcher time comes.

On our farms we named or cows names like TBone or Stewie. LOL. It helped us understand their purpose.

Regarding feeding your rabbits: I used to go to the local supermarket and ask them for old carrots and lettuce that they were going to throw out. I brought it home for free to feed to my rabbits. I also used to buy horse feed by the 50-lb. bag to feed my rabbits. It was, as I recall, a mixture of pellets and grains, with some honey added. They loved it. I agree with the lady who said that, except for your permanent breeding stock, don’t ever name your rabbits. I do recommend you keep track of each rabbit’s genealogy, so you don’t inadvertently mate rabbits that are closely related, such as a rabbit and its parent, or perhaps two siblings. I did that once, and the mother ate her kits.

Christie, rabbits were game long before they were ever pets. if you don’t like it, don’t eat. Why did you click an article about raising them as food if it offends you?

Shame on you for promoting this. I am unsubscribing and shopping elsewhere.

I raise my bunnies in a HUGE communal pen. They are on dirt, so they can dig burrows and live (kind of) like rabbits are supposed to live. They don’t get so over heated in summer, because they can go underground. I try to give them (and all my critters) as good a life (and as close to "normal) as I possibly can, before I murder and eat the poor things.

these self-important knuckle draggers should just eat their young.

Rabbit is a great homestead animal. A doe can produce for up to 4 years and give more meat in a year than a cow can produce. They are quiet and add to the garden with droppings that do not need to be composted first. They can be fed tops from beets, carrots, dandelions, and kale, NEVER LETTUCE! Apple slices once in a while. Also you know that there aren’t any pesticides or hormones in them and they are treated humanely to the end. There are many additional meat breeds=American Chinchilla, Palominos, Satin, Champagne D’Argent, Standard Rex, Crème D’Argent and Cinnamon. Check out the ARBA website it has a lot of good info. Check out a Rabbit show in your area. Rabbit breeders love to help others raise rabbits.

Never thought of rabbits. I guess like my grandma used to say, if you get hungry enough…

@Christie Taylor

Hey not a bad idea! you guys should come up with some cat recipes for emergencies :). I bet a nice fat house cat would be better than any stray XD

no cats for me I ll leave that for the philipines but rabbits are a good source of protein for preppers with smaller yards and not much acreage.

Christie: One common rule is that Rabbits are food, Bunnies are pets. And either way they were food long before they were pets. No one is saying to make a meal out of a fuzzy lop house bunny, but meat rabbits are for eating. No shame as long as they have clean comfortable habitats, and a swift end.

Their cost figures are deceptive. Rabbit is still cheaper to raise, and in a pinch you can forage their food for them. However, you have to consider the cost of feeding the doe, the buck, as well as the litter, and rabbit feed is now about $15.00 for 50 lbs. The cost for a frozen rabbit is about $10, so it is cheaper to raise them and they are sustainable. They are also faster and easier to clean than chickens.

Rabbits are livestock, needing daily care. No family vacations, no skipping chores, no matter what the weather. Then there’s butchering. Be sure you like the final product on the plate before taking on the challenge . And watch out for zoning laws!

This is sickening. Rabbits are pets. Catch stray cats if you’re that hungry.

My father-in-law raised rabbits, and I cringed at the idea of eating cute bunnies. They usually fixed the meat like fried chicken – and it was quite good – sort of like….chicken! For my family, when my husband wanted rabbit, I usually added a few pieces of chicken to fry, along with the rabbit. On one occasion, I fried ONLY rabbit. My kids knew how I felt – and I instructed them to call dinner "fried CHICKEN". Everyone complied – until my 8-year-old daughter asked for another piece of "chicken", removed it from the platter, and said "hippity hop, hippity hop" as she bounced it onto her plate! Horrors! Everyone else laughed – and I had to agree it was funny. Fortunately, I eventually ‘got over it’, and have enjoyed rabbit prepared many ways – usually braised, fried or stewed. The meat is VERY low fat – so baking can dry it out unless you take care. The ‘loin’ section is often prepared in interesting ways by ‘chefs de cuisine’, since it is a fairly bland meat that readily accepts flavorings. The meat is very good – it’s just a matter of ‘acclimating yourself’ to the idea. Have someone else take care for the animals, and you just do the cooking – when they’re ready to cook!

LOVE the pic of Pot’O’Bunny above! ha!

I have raised rabbits for many many years as a source of good lean meat. A few things to remember, especially if you have children: Only "name" the breeding stock. It will be very hard to kill and eat something you have given a name to. They do NOT have to have store bought expensive pelleted feed. Rabbits are VERY cheap to raise. Of course, depending on your climate, you can pick things such as grasses, etc and give them garden weeds and they do great! It works best if you let the greens dry in the sun first. They love kitchen peelings, though not raw potato skins. They have a hard time digesting them. Bread products, biscuits that didn’t turn out right or other bakery items are well received as well. They do need SOME grain products especially in cold weather. Cracked corn works great as do oats, fed supplementally. They taste much like dark meat chicken. I like to cut them into pieces, brown after dusting with flour, and then cook them in a casserole pan on lower heat, about 275 degrees, for a few hours in a pint or so of half and half, to which salt, pepper, and a touch of cinnamon have been added. VERY tasty; out version of "Cinnabuns". Bake them like any chicken type meat.. in casseroles, etc. The cheapest form of protein you can raise! Oh, they have trouble in hot weather. I freeze plastic soda bottles of water, keeping them capped, lay the bottle of ice on it’s side in the pen. The rabbits will lay along side it if they are too warm. They won’t breed if they’re overheated. Hope this helps someone!

I have raised rabbit for years. Originally on my parents farm as an additional protein from our other livestock, now in a neighborhood we raise it as our primary meat source. It’s healthy, very good and extremely easy to manage. Not to mention the kids love to see the little critters from birth to more mature rabbits. They also love to sit down to a good rabbit dinner too.

As a rabbit hunter with almost 50m years of experience, I can attest to the fact that WILD rabbit is delicious. As rabbit meat is RED meat, you can substitute it for pork, beef, chicken (it is very lean) or just about any type of meat you can think of, Roast it, bake it, fry it, stew it, you can even make rabbit jerky.

Just remember, rabbit is VERY LEAN. Like venison (deer) and elk, you should add healthy fat to your recipes.

Also, DO NOT OVERCOOK. This is a mistake that way too many people make with most wild or lean game.

If you raise a garden, you will do far better than most, and the rabbit droppings make very good fertilizer. If you also raise chickens, your garden will thank you forever.

Raising either, keep your .22 handy for predators.

1 more thing: groundhog makes a fine meal also. They eat the same thing that wild rabbits eat, are very lean, and have a LOT of meat. The younger, the better, and prepare them the same as you would rabbit, squirrel, deer, beef, or even chicken.

Happy Hiccups!

Poor rabbits probably don’t want to be confined, killed or eaten though.

so, in Orem / Provo, Ut, how many rabbits, can be raised,

without incurring the wrath of the city / ones neighbors

Rabbit is a very nutritious meat and easy to raise. They require little maintenance and can be raised just about anywhere. You can butcher a rabbit in under 5 minutes and much easier than chicken. Rabbits don’t tolerate heat well above 90 degrees but cold is not a problem. I move them to an air conditioned shed in summer as I live in GA. New Zealand Whites and Californias are the best for producing meat.

Christie, good idea to eat cats and not bunnies. The only problem is I’ve eaten all the cats in the neighborhood and now we have more bunnies. Yummy!

It would be a good idea to get one to cook and eat from a breeder, before you do anything else.