022. Growing Meat In Your Backyard 1: Rabbits--Are They Worth It?

On today's espidode we'll be talking about one of three different types of animals, rabbits, that you can raise in your backyard or small homestead for meat. We're going to be asking the questions: Why? How? and Is it worth it?

For more information on keeping rabbits, we recommend Bobby from therabbitrycenter.com and you can also find him on the Rabbitry Center on YouTube.

To learn more about our journey be sure to visit our website at www.thetwoacrehomestead.com

Be sure to read our online magazine:  The Two Acre Homestead Magazine

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Questions?  Email me at lisa@thetwoacrehomestead.com

Transcript

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(Teaser)
Welcome to The Two Acre Homestead Podcast. I'm your host, Lisa. And today we are going to be talking about one of three different types of animals that you can raise in your backyard or small homestead for meat. We're going to be asking the questions: Why? How? and Is it worth it? What's coming up next is rabbits--is it worth it?

(Season 2 Intro)
Welcome to The Two Acre Homestead. Come along with us on our journey from a small Suburban Homestead lifestyle, to our new lifestyle, homesteading, rural countryside of southern Arizona. We'll share with you our tips, tricks, successes and failures from both our past suburban lifestyle to our new rural lifestyle all on The Two Acre Homestead.

(Season 2 Episode 4)
Okay, well welcome back, everybody. And I just want to say raising rabbits can be really a rewarding and hard thing to do. This is just my personal opinion. But I think if you are new to homesteading, and you've never raised an animal before, I highly recommend that you give rabbits a try. Over chickens. Yeah, that's right, over chickens. We're going to discuss why I feel this way. Even though myself personally, my first animal on our homestead was the chicken Of course, they are known to be the some people anecdotally will say they are the gateway drug, or gateway animal rather, to homesteading.

I challenge that thought process, because rabbits are actually one of the easiest things to raise, especially if you have just a backyard. So let's get into it.

So here in North America, um, the northern hemisphere, we'll put it that way. It just seems like we are so far removed from where our meat comes from. And you look out in the world today, and as of the recording of this podcast, we are experiencing inflation. And things are just getting really super expensive. And meat specifically is going through the roof. I happen to be fortunate that my husband and I we raised predominantly most of our meat here on our homestead, not all but most of the meat that we consume is raised here. Rabbits is one of them.

Rabbits are quiet. They don't require a lot of space. And even though they are cute, I strongly believe if you are the type of person who you know you are getting into homesteading, this is the path that you're going to take. Raising a meat rabbit is probably the best over a chicken, the best thing that you can raise. And the reason I say that is because rabbits and this is gonna sound very strange, but because their fur they they're a mammal, obviously, a mammal, but they're an animal with with fur on it. Totally different processing. Totally different feeling of processing, or meat rabbit or a rabbit as opposed to processing a chicken. Who has feathers? I think it's a little bit more it's it's a little bit more difficult. At first to process something that's, you know, most people would say is cute and furry. I've had so many people over the year say how in the world can you you know, kill and process a rabbit well. Easy, but it's it See, that takes time it takes grit it takes, you have to develop that skill set of being able to process them on that day. It's a hard day. It's not a day that you're saying, yay, you know, I can't wait for these know. Even with chickens, we raised chickens here on our homestead. And when it's processing day, it's never fun, even, even if it's a particular chicken, like, for example, just two months ago, we processed several chickens, almost 50 chickens here on our homestead. And one of them was our laying hen, one of our laying hens, we culled her, she was a bully, she was the thug of all of our, our, our hens. And, you know, I didn't like her, she was responsible for the death of one of the other chickens, which is why we culled her and but it wasn't, I wasn't happy to get rid of her. I wasn't like, you know, yay, no, it's hard to get rid of any animal.

But at the end of the day, you know that that particular animal, whether you like that animal or not, is going to provide you and your family with food. So one of the things I always like a friend of mine, she just was here a couple of weeks ago and asked the same question. And I said, it starts from you harden yourself off the day, they are either here on your property or the day they are born on your property. So for example, right now we have 15 kits, a kit is a baby rabbit, we have 15 right now on our property. And I see them every day, I do health checks on them every single day. But I do not allow myself to get emotionally attached to them. Like I do our breeding does, and our breeding buck. I just don't allow myself to get attached to them. Now, our buck and our does, are breeding does when you know after six years, because that's when they start slowing down in their production. So after six years, we won't use them anymore, but they will still be here on our property living a fantastic life. 

Because that is how we view them is more of a pet, then something that we're going to something that's going to provide our family with food. So you harden yourself off, just like you would a garden plant, you're taking it out of the greenhouse. And it's a seedling and you set it outside for a couple, you know for a couple of hours. And then you bring it back in. And you keep doing that process over and over again, that's called hardening off. You do the same thing with your emotions, you harden off your emotions. And you have to tell yourself, this particular animal is it has a purpose. It's not a pet, it's this animal serves a purpose. So you'll hear some people say don't name them don't, don't pet them. Some people might say go ahead and name them. Go ahead and pet them. And I actually agree with that. Go ahead and pet them handle them. But know in the back of your mind, I am not letting myself get attached because that animal serves a purpose on your homestead. Here in North America, we've lost that edge.

So by raising a meat rabbit, raising rabbits like this, it will help you develop that edge because if you're going into homesteading and homes, you know you're going to be raising larger animals, you're going to need to have that same amount of grit, you're going to need to have that same amount of hardening off. We've lost that edge here because of you know, all of our meat comes shrink wrapped in the grocery store so there's no connection. But once you start knowing where that meat has come from, and you have that connection with that meat, that meat is precious to you.

I know that is how I feel when we have any meat on our home stead and, you know, we serve it at dinner, or we serve it during lunch, but mostly at dinner, that's the only time that we really will eat a lot of meat is at dinner during the day, it's usually just vegetables, fruit, legumes, rice, that type of thing. But um, you know, in the evening, you know, if the kids aren't eating any of the meat, you know, we, I don't force them to eat, what they don't want to eat. But in my mind, I'm saying an animal died, you need to consume that this meat is precious, we need to show it respect. And at the end of the day, you when you just throw meat away, you're disrespecting the life of the animal that died.

So when you raise your own meat, that meat becomes precious, you respect. It's almost like it's built in, like you just automatically respect the life of the animal that died, so that you and your family can eat. So it becomes a precious commodity. And then you kind of start looking at things in the grocery store, like, you know, you start looking at the meat that's in the grocery store, and you're thinking, Hmm, you know, no wonder why we kind of have this throwaway society because we have no connection with the animal that was associated with those pork chops. With the animal that was associated with that chicken breast. There's no connection. 

And then there are animals that we used to eat that, you know, your great grandparents, my great grandparents, and generations 1000s of generations have eaten that we don't eat anymore, that are really super good and healthy for you. One of those animals that we've lost a taste for is Rabbit. Rabbit is an excellent meat. It's high in iron. It's one of the highest in iron. It's one of the what's the word I'm looking for? It has practically no fat. It is leaner than chicken breast. That's how little fat it is. So if you're somebody who is concerned about their weight, if you're somebody who is trying to maybe you have a cholesterol issue and you're trying to, you know, you still want to consume meat, and you want to lower your cholesterol, rabid is actually actually your meat of choice. Because it has such low cholesterol, I mean, it's just perfect.

So let's get into how you would raise your rabbits. There are several books that are out there. You can go on Amazon, and you can look at all different types of books that will tell you how to raise rabbits for meat. I know one book that actually had to dig this out of our library. I haven't had to refer to this too much anymore. But this book got me well on my way. And it's called Raising raising rabbits for me, and it's by Eric Rapp and Callene Rapp. Eric and Colleen rap. I think I'm pronouncing it correctly. Her name is spelled C-A-L-L-E-N-E and then Rapp, R-A-P-P. It's a small book. It's it's I mean, you could read this in a day, or at least I did. But you know, I'm kind of a book person. So you could read this in a day, maybe a couple of days and really be able to wrap your head around some of the things that we're going to discuss today. 

So the first thing when it comes to raising rabbits as you want you want to know the why you're raising rabbits. Why are you raising them for meat? Are you raising them because they're cute and cuddly and you want to pet for your kids? Are you raising them for pelts? That's right pelts, the skin. Because you can not the skin excuse me the fur because you can actually raise rabbits and use their fur So some rabbits are dual purpose. And so there's different breeds for different things. Now, for the purpose of this podcast, obviously, we are talking about meat rabbits, so we are not going to discuss anything that's cute and cuddly for a pet. Now that we've set that aside, now we want to look at are you raising them for meat? Or meat and pelts?

So some of the breeds that I think are pretty interesting are the American rabbits. And actually, if you can get your hands on an American rabbit, they're usually white. And then they've got like black splotches, sometimes usually a patch over one eye and maybe some dark black ears. I would say get my hands on an American rabbit. They are starting to become endangered. And I would definitely definitely definitely breed them. I know myself personally if I could get my hands on one of them, or two or three, I would breed them with no problem. Another one, so ones that are dual purpose that serve the purpose of meat and for is an American chinchilla. The American chinchilla is starting to get get a little bit more popular. They're bigger breed or they're really good meat, meat rabbit they are also they are also starting to become endangered as well. So again, or they're not starting they've been endangered but they are starting to become a little bit more popular. People are really looking for them. So they're good for their Pelt and the meat cinnamons are also they are those rabbits I've seen them in person they are so adorable. And they are a pretty big, they're adorable and they're big cinnamons they can weigh anywhere between nine nine to 10 pounds. And when I say nine to 10 pounds, that means I mean hanging weight, they're hanging weight is nine to 10 pounds hanging weight meaning that's what they weigh after you have processed them. So they're big rabbit and they have an interesting story. You can look it up online the cinnamon rabbit they actually were bred accidentally.

So one of my favorite that I wish I could raise here on our homestead is the Californian. Now the Californian is they are they've been crossbred with a lot of other breeds. And they have a hanging weight of about eight pounds to 10 pounds as well. But something about the Californian that you all need to be aware of is that they do not if you're in a hot climate like I am, they don't do well in the heat. Let me repeat that they do not do well in heat. I can say that from personal experience. I had a Californian and unfortunately she died and what we were able to figure out is she died from the heat so yeah, do not raise them if if you're in a very hot climate, but I will say from personal experience. They are really good moms. Them and another breed I'm sorry I'm getting off on a tangent now but they are really good does. Really, really good dose absolutely love them.

Now on the flip side, a rabbit that is good for the hot climate is the Champagne D'Argent. Okay, I speak French. I'm going to try to say this without the French accent. But Champagne. I've practiced this but I guess I just don't know how to say D'Argent without Frenchifying it. So I'll spell it. It's Champagne and then the D is separate. And then A-R-G-E-N-T champagne D'Argent. And these particular rabbits are very good in hot climates, they can tolerate the heat. And they are really really good for their meat. The Flemish Giant is also a, a good breed. They are huge and live weight that means when they are alive, not they're hanging weight, but live weight, they can get about 20 pounds. So that's a really big that's the size of a dog of a small dog. So that's a really good size. Um, and let's see here and the Flemish giant. They are not good with heat. So you're going to notice a pattern here when it comes to meat rabbits. The smaller the meat rabbit is the better they do with heat. The larger the meat rabbit is they don't do so well in the heat. Rabbits generally speaking like cold climate, most rabbits do. So yeah, you'll you'll find this to be pretty much in I guess you know a theme here. French angora. The angora rabbit is a dual purpose rabbit. It is a meat rabbit and also good for its pelt. The New Zealand I personally have New Zealand blends, and we'll get into that at the very end here. But I do have New Zealand's here on our homestead. And I can tell you that they from personal experience. They are oh my gosh, they are really good moms really good dose, they produce a large amount of kits. By the way. Side note, the Californians also produce large litters large amounts of kits. So we're talking like our California in one time she produced 12 kits, no joke. I don't even know how she humanly did that. Now. They did not. She's not human by the way. But I don't know that they did not all survive, but she did produce 12 So they them Californians and New Zealand's large litters. So if you're looking for high production, like numerically, a lot of rabbits, those are your rabbits. But again, the New Zealand live weight you're looking at about nine to 12 pounds. So that's a considerably smaller rabbit. And that's why they do good in the heat. Now a side note footnote here with the New Zealand and again I am speaking from my own personal experience as well. And I think you'll find most people who breed New Zealand's will tell you the same thing. They are little hotheads. They are not the cute and cuddly, you can handle them let your kids feed them. No, they are pretty feisty. They're a little bit aggressive. And actually they're they're a lot a bit aggressive. Especially the dose and especially when the dose are pregnant and about to about to give birth, the app they can be pretty, pretty mean. So um but like I said, who they are good moms and they produce really well. Then there is the RX and the RX is also a dual purpose. Rabbit also raised for fur and fur meat and they weigh about eight pounds to nine pounds. Life weight. So another one R R R rabbits are mixed with this and that is called the silver fox. So a silver fox is they are absolutely beautiful. Their fur is it's just the softest for it's soft and silky and it has a dark sepia color to it. And so sometimes In certain light, it can look one color and the other light, it can look another color.

But they should not be exposed. If you have a pure Silverfox don't try to raise them in either the extreme heat or the extreme cold. They're like the rest of us, they like perfect temperatures. So, um, but those are just some things to think about when you are, those are the different types of breeds that you can think about when you are trying to figure out what type of rabbit you want to raise. Now, I want to get into this because I know a lot of rabbit breeders are probably not going to agree with me on this. But that's okay. I think there's enough room and enough voices in the homesteading space, that we can have different opinions. There is something called meat months, when you get into raising rabbits, you're gonna hear that term. Oh, that's a meat month. That's what I have. What is a meat month? A meat month means it's a rabbit that's not pure. So like I said, I have New Zealand's and my New Zealand's are mixed with Silverfox and a little bit of Californian. So they're not pure. Now, I did that intentionally. And the reason why I did that is the breeder that I chose to go with. She is here in this part of the state that I live in. And so her climate actually is a little bit hotter than mine. And I chose to go with that particular mixture, because that's good for the heat. And it's good for the cold. Because where I am here in southern Arizona, I have very extreme temperatures, it can be the ground can be frozen solid, and highs maybe in the 30s during the winter lows in the 20s. Even maybe the teens, and then in the summertime, we can get up to 100 degrees. So I have very extreme temperatures. So I need rabbits that can handle that. And that's what she focuses on breeding is rabbits that can handle specifically the heat. And so we made the choice to go with that particular breeder. Most people will say to you do not go with meat, mutts because you're not going to get as big of or as much meat. And it's going to take longer for the rabbit to grow. So there's the feed conversion ratio that you have to factor in. And basically you have to look at the math. How much feed are you giving that rabbit? And how long is it going to take for that rabbit to grow out to butcher wait. We'll get to the butchering weight at the very, very end of this podcast. But you have to figure that out for yourself. Now this particular breeder that I went with, she's already done the math for us in specifically with with these specific rabbits that we have. So we know what our Grow Up rate is, like how long it will take to grow out our rabbits, and how much food it takes for us to feed them. Fortunately for us, and I hope that this is the case for you guys. rabbits eat, they have a very broad diet, there's a lot of things that they can eat. And again, we'll get into that a little bit further. But we don't feed them just pellets, we feed them a lot of things. And so that really helps with our feed conversion rate. So I encourage you to do some homework, do your own homework. Look it up, find out what that rate that conversion rate is for you. And for the type of breed I can't tell you what it is because it depends on what breed you go with. Each breed is different. And so that's why it's important for you to know what type of rabbit you want to have in the Y.

I hope that makes sense. But in Anyway, we will go on here with next subject is caring for your rabbits, how to care for them. So, when you're caring for your rabbits, one of the things that you want to think about is climate. Remember that rabbits basically are wearing a coat. So in the heat, they're wearing a coat, step outside in your wool coat, and see how long you last in the middle of July. And then you'll know what your rabbits are facing. Remember, when rabbits are hot, they don't sweat like we do. So they expel their heat through their ears. So you really want to pay attention to their ears, or their ears bright red, and they're really panting are they laying on their side panting and their ears are bright red, you know that rabbits in trouble with heat. One of the things we do here on our homestead when it comes to heat. First of all, we have our rabbits right now in cages. And what we do is we find this better to have them in cages in the summer, because all we need to do is we take we go to the dollar store, and we buy those cheapy aluminum. They're not aluminum. But anyway, those cheapy baking things that you can do like a baking sheet, and we freeze, we put water in it, and we freeze it. And then in the afternoon, we can take that, that pan and put it up under the cage. So that way the rabbits are sitting on top of the ice, and they're getting themselves cool. Another thing that you can do to keep your rabbits cool in the summer, is by simply just having a simple fan and just keeping a fan blowing on them. We don't do that here on our homestead because our rabbits share space right now during the summer with the chickens. So we have our rabbit cages on an elevated part of our chicken yard. And and it's covered and it's cooler because our chicken yard sits up under some pretty large trees that we have on our on our property so the rabbits can stay away from predators that are really abundant here on our homestead right now during the summer, and they stay cool. And they're get the extra cool from having those baking sheets that are iced over. And they're just sitting there in nice cold ice. Literally, I have seen my rabbits go from panting heavy to we stick the ice trays up under them. And literally, you see them stop panting because they're getting nice and cooled down. And we usually do that anywhere between the two to four o'clock time during the day because that's the hottest time of the day. Now when it comes to keeping rabbits warm again, remember, they're wearing a coat. So again, wool coat outside in the middle of winter, wherever it is that you are, you know, if you're like us and you get ice, and we don't necessarily get snow, but it is bitterly cold here. And so you need to protect them from from the cold elements. So do they have a place where they can burrow down? Are they inside a building, give them extra hay, give them heating mats. I know some people even use heat lamps, the same type of heat lamp that you would use for baby chicks. That red, that red lamp, there's there's other there's other lamps as well that don't have the red or there's heat blocks. If you've got power to your barn or wherever you're keeping your rabbits put that out for them. And that way they stay nice and warm.

So that's one thing that you want to do as far as caring for your meat rabbits. The other thing is housing. So this can be a little bit controversial and yeah housing can be causing can be really controversial for some people. Now I have had people actually direct messaged me on Instagram and asked me questions about colony raising rabbits I am very pro colony raising my rabbits. And there are so many pros and cons to either one, even though right now my rabbits are in cages. I am still very pro colony raising our rabbits, let's get into why we kind of do both. First off, if you're new to this colony raising is basically putting your rabbits in an enclosed environment that mimics what their natural environment would be. So, for example, we have my husband built this, I want to say it's a building, but it's almost like a little lean to, but it stands alone by itself. And what we did, it has obviously the four corners, so it's square, and we put wire mesh, top to bottom. And the floor is all wired. And it's all connected. Basically, we made one gigantic cage. That's basically what we did. And I believe the size of ours is I think it's 10 feet by 20 feet. If, if I'm thinking of it correctly. But it's it's pretty large. And what we did is we allowed the rabbits to be in that area, and we put what's called buckets. So bucket pearls. And basically we took buckets, dug them into the ground, had holes poured out of those buckets on the side, and had tubes connected to each bucket. And the beauty of that is is that in the winter, and even when the weather starts to get a little bit warmer, they can go into those bucket burrows. And that's they like to live in those burls. And they all live together. I have never had a problem with my buck and my doze living together. Except for when it's time to give birth. So you really just kind of have to watch them, they they will fight for a little bit. But um, and like I said, I mean I have New Zealand. Well, she's that particular dough is more New Zealand than anything else. And she is mean when she's about to give birth. But the other week, the space is so big that the other rabbit can kind of get away, the other female rabbit can kind of get away and she can jump up and you know, not be bothered by the other the other rabbit. So that is what a colony looks like. Sounds like then of course there's cages. So I'm going to go through I have a list of some of the pros and the cons of both. So if you're gonna raise rabbits in cages, just know you can easily keep them clean. Because usually they're either pooping in the tray. Or if you're like us, we have it to where their poop just falls that their poop just falls down to the floor. They're not in contact with their urine or poop at all. You can keep them cool, easier when they're in cages. And you can avoid them fighting when they're in cages. Some of the cons to having your rabbits in cages is that they lose actually they lose their muscle tone because they're not able to move around so much so they lose some of that muscle tone. And you know, the other thing is, is that they lose their social habits. They start to become a little bit more moody when they're in the cages. They're more likely to bite you because they feel so isolated.

And setting up the cages can be very expensive. I haven't had to buy cages in a little bit. But the last time I bought a 30 by 30 size cage, which by the way 30 feet by 30. Is it 30 feet or is it 30 inches 30 by 30 cage is what you want in the size. You want your cages To be that size, that's enough room for the rabbits to move around, have some liberty of moving around. And even if you have a dough that gives birth in those cages, that's still enough room. And believe me, I've got five kids right now in one cage. Actually, yeah, each cage has five kits right now. And they are perfectly fine. Yeah, so but they are expensive. They're expensive. And the last time I had to buy one, I want to say, it was like $45 to buy one cage. So they're expensive. It's expensive to set it up. Now, that being said, you can build your own cages. I have never done that myself personally. So I cannot speak to that experience. I know there's a lot of YouTube videos out there, I would say check out. I can't think of the guy's name. But it's the rabbit tree. I don't know, look up on YouTube. It's called the rabbit tree. It's a guy out in, in Michigan. And he has a really good video on building rabbit cages. And he has a he has actually a pretty good YouTube channel when it comes to raising and breeding rabbits. And he also has an interesting, he kind of has a little bit of a hybrid setup there for colony raising his cages and colony. I'm not interested in doing it that way. But you may find it interesting. So I would encourage you to go check him out. And I am I don't even know if he's a listener to the podcast. I'm not paid by him or anything like that. But it's just some some a channel that I find. He has some interesting things. Now, as far as colony raising your rabbits. I do want to put this one thing out here. When you're raising your rabbits on a in a colony situation. You want to make sure that you either have only one buck, or keep your bucks separated, keep them out where they're not together. Two bucks together is never a good. It's just not going to it's just not going to work this way too much testosterone not going to work. So only one buck in the colony. Yeah, trust me, one buck, you don't want more than that. So colony, the pros of raising a colony is that they, especially if you do the bucket burrow system, they can dig and they can, they can burrow safely. And they can regulate their body temperature, whether it's cooler, hot, a little bit easier. They keep that muscle tone, because they're moving around a lot more. And it's not as expensive as setting up all of the cages. And some people will use a shed. So if you've already got a shed and it's not being used, use it to raise your rabbits. So that's making use of something that you already have. And rabbits when they're raised in a colony, you will be amazed at how happier they are and how much more social they are. They clump up together, they sleep together, they they fight but they they still sleep together and they they clump up together. They're around each other. Rabbits are social animals, and they really liked to be together in that colony situation but raising rabbits in a colony has its cons. And here's a couple of my cons. When you have a colony you can get more viruses, more disease, it's harder to clean out the cage or the colony area.

And also you open yourself up to more predator attack. And you don't have the control over who breeds with whom. So it's just kind of a free for all. And believe you me rabbits can. There's a technical word for it but rabbits can hold on to the semen. The females they can hold on to that semen and And they may not show their pregnancy until like, way past the time that they've been bred. And then all of a sudden, you have surprise litter. So I know we just had that happen where one of our females, one of our dose, she just, I mean, she's been in the cage for a month and a half. She hasn't been with our book and a month and a half. And she just gave birth. as of the recording of this, she just gave birth yesterday. Much to our surprise, we were like, Whoa, we didn't even know she was pregnant. But that's that's the problem with colony raising is that you don't have control. So if you really want to have control over how much meat, how much time you're spending, processing, how much meat you're producing, and how much time you're spending producing such meat, then you might want to keep them in a cage. I will try to encourage you to make sure that if you do cages, keep the mesh together the cages so that way they can at least see each other and be next to each other physically. I know that's how we do it. And it seems like our rabbits are a little bit happier. Now, if you're in an area like us, I do want to add this cautionary thing. When you are building a rabbit colony, do not use chicken wire, stay away from it, it's not good. Predators can get into your rabbit colony, we had that happen. And one of our doz died because a snake got in there and killed her. The snake was after her babies, we believe that she was protecting her her babies. Everybody was accounted for. But yeah, it was a bad situation. So that is my personal experience. And that's why we keep our our rabbits right now in cages because of the snake problem. And then we have a lot of here in our area, we have a lot of rattlesnakes. We have king snakes and other types of snakes. And yeah, so you have to really be careful of that. Then, when snake season is done, which is I think that's in September October, they'll start going, they'll start burrowing in and they go away, then that's when we will put them back into their colony. And they can do their thing in their colony. Right now we have turkeys in their colony, because the turkeys will kill any snake, so there's no threat to them. But that is our personal story with why we do both, but our preference is to raise them in a colony. So now feeding your rabbits there are there are pros and cons to feeding them. Pellets I have read that you really want to feed the adult rabbits, especially if you are breeding them for meat, try your best to stick with pellets. That is what I've read. That's not necessarily what I do. But that's what I've read. And on our homestead we do both. So we feed them a little bit of pellet. But because we we do a lot of gardening they get a lot of garden fresh food stuff that we're not consuming for but you know, there are some things that you you don't want to feed them for example, like carrots. I know carrots are synonymous with rabbits, but you don't want to feed them carrots because it'll make them too fat. The carrot tops have too much calcium in them. So generally speaking, don't fear. Don't feed your rabbits, carrots. Don't feed them. A lot of brassicas.

And brassicas are like cabbage, cauliflower, kales, those things. Don't feed them a lot of that because it can make them sick and it can produce a lot of gas in their stomach and believe it or not, rabbits don't fart so they you know that gas will build up it's called bloat and it can kill them. So just be careful Um, but there are safe foods for them to eat. If you want to just like feed them produce, feed them naturally. There are things like cucumbers, they can eat grapes, they can eat most fruits. I don't know of too many fruits that they can't eat. But again, you need to do your research on this and find out what they can eat but I know we feed ours like celery, Swiss chard, purslane Spinach artichoke leaves China think there's there's a host of things that we feed them bok choy, Sunflower, sunflower seeds are very good for the doze, specially when they're when they're about to when they're about to have babies, give them give them sunflower seeds and oats. Oats are really good for them. Yeah, so do your research. Look up at the list is exhaustive. There's an exhaustive list on what they can eat, and what they can't eat. The other thing that they can eat that they absolutely love, and the pellets that you buy from the feed store. They're usually made from this and that is alfalfa. So we actually have bales of alfalfa hay, and we feed that to them. They make their nest with the alfalfa hay, they eat it, they love it, I highly recommend giving them giving them alfalfa. But I will caution you especially for raising meat rabbits don't over feed them with the pellets. And don't. Don't don't overfeed them because they can get fat and it it'll prevent them from being able to have their kits. So you really want to be careful of that. And stay away from things like delphinium looping lupine, rather, Poppy's rhubarb leaves, nightshade, family nightshade, like tomatoes, a plant, the leaves of those things stay far away from those things. They're deadly Hemlock, oak leaves, potato tops. Yeah, those those type of things, you do not want to feed your rabbits, you will, you will kill them. It's very toxic to them. So now we're coming to butchering time. This is the hard time when you've done all of your hard work. And it's time to say goodbye. Generally speaking, it takes about 15 weeks to grow out your rabbits. And what's your goal in all of this work that you've been doing to raise them is this you're looking for the hanging weight of your rabbits to be about five to six pounds. Five to six pounds, it's about the same size as a chicken. Now, here's the catch. I'm not going to get into how to process rabbits in this podcast. There's a lot of videos out there. There's a lot of books, I encourage you to do your homework. If you follow me on Instagram, go back there's a post that I did. I can't tell you when but there's a book that I show and it's about butchering and how to butcher I highly recommend using that book to find out how to butcher your rabbits humanely.

But once you have butchered them and once that meat has sat for at least 24 hours and chilled, and I don't mean like chill, like hang out, chill. I mean like chilled temperature wise. So you want to put the meat in a cooler for 24 hours sitting in ice ice water for 24 hours. The next day you need to know what you're going to do with that meat. So The best thing to do, the most recommended thing to do with rabbit meat is to simply can't it. And that's because rabbit meat because it's so thin or so lean, excuse me. It doesn't have a whole lot of fat. So it it is really soft when you can it. Canning and processing your meat that way requires a pressure canner. And if you're not familiar with pressure canning, I encourage you to get yourself familiar with pressure canning. This is another reason why I think raising rabbits is good for those of you who want to start this journey of homesteading, because it kind of puts you in that position of learning how to can how to preserve that meat for the long haul. And that way later down the road, you'll learn you'll already know how to can and the best resource I can recommend to you for learning how to can how to pressure can we're not talking waterbath canning pressure canning is the National Center for Home Food Preservation website. There's also the ball canning book, you want to check that out. That's you can find that on Amazon, that will tell you a step by step guide. Now when it comes to canning, I will say this. There are some YouTube channels out there that are really good. That will really teach you how to can properly. I know when I first started on my journey again, this person has no idea who I am. And again, I've been doing this I've been canning since 2014. And I don't even know if her channel is still around. But oh man, her last name just went out of my head. Linda's No, it's her YouTube channels called Linda's pantry. I don't know if her channel is still around. But I when I first started in 2014, I read books, websites, National Center for Home Food Preservation. And I watched her Ken, I would highly recommend if you're looking for somebody to watch on YouTube, who can teach you how to can if her channel is still up, I would say Her channel is probably in my opinion, the best. There are some other channels out there and that the canning world. I've heard some people call it the canning trolls. But I think that's kind of harsh. But there are very very strong opinions in the canning world. And like you have to can this way and you have to cam that way. As you grow as a homesteader you will find what you are most comfortable with. But those are the website book and YouTube channel that I would recommend to get you started at least getting you started on the right way. And if you choose to do what's called Rebel canning down the road, you can that's on you, that's between you and your family. But those channels will really help you. And yeah, when you're trying to process getting back to rabbits, I'm sorry, I went down a rabbit hole. But pun intended, by the way. But yeah, when you're processing your rabbits, the best way to to to save that meat is to can it you can obviously freeze it as well. But I would say canning it is probably the best. The other thing I would recommend when you're canning is can do not try to debug on your rabbits. That's a fool's errand. There's so many bones. They have so many little bones. And

I would say if you can it, when you take it out of the can to eat the meat, the bones just come right out. So that would be my recommendation is to just simply can it. Well, this was a long episode. I hope that this answered any of your questions. And I hope this like kind of helps you to think about rabbits. There are a lot of pros. There's way more pros to keeping rabbits and there are cons. So if you have any other questions on keeping rabbits go ahead feel free to shoot me an email and that is Lisa at the two acre homestead.com Or you can direct message me on Instagram with the same handle the two acre homestead.

Well that is it for me on this hot first day of July. I hope you and your family are doing well for my family to your family. Happy homesteading and stay safe out there.