Eat more rabbits--don't become extinct

[J F]

I know which way I'm headin' when the zombies take over. Plus, I like the carpentry work. :laughing:

 

[MotorSeven]

:laughing:

 

[KretZ]

As a youngster, I grew up eating every cottontail, swamp rabbit, and jackrabbit we could find and kill. I had never eaten domestic rabbit until I started raising New Zealand Whites in the Fall of 1995. In about 5 years, I raised over 300 and ate lots of rabbit. As good as it is, I still don't understand why we rarely find rabbit in our grocery stores.

They have it in the grocery stores over here, a lot of German immigrants settled in Chicago I think. There are also a lot of restaurants that serve all kinds of what we would consider "wild game". There is a deer farm near by across the border in the Netherlands. Its just a herd of deer in a big fenced in field hanging out.

 

[Bird]

Yeah, KretZ, I wish our local supermarkets had rabbit. When I was raising rabbits, I occasionally sold one to a German lady who had married an American soldier. I know she, and her husband, liked them.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Yeah, KretZ, I wish our local supermarkets had rabbit. When I was raising rabbits, I occasionally sold one to a German lady who had married an American soldier. I know she, and her husband, liked them.

Back during the dark ages of WWII, my folks raised rabbits because meat was rationed. I have eaten so much wild rabbit when I was growing up that domestic, farm raised rabbit just doesn't taste good to me.

 

[Bird]

Back during the dark ages of WWII, my folks raised rabbits because meat was rationed. I have eaten so much wild rabbit when I was growing up that domestic, farm raised rabbit just doesn't taste good to me.

I remember, from when I was a kid, that my paternal grandmother once said she was not going to eat any rabbit because when she and my grandfather got married (about 1914 I think), money was so scarce that he shot jackrabbits and she made canned sausage of the jackrabbits and for at least one year that was the main meat they had to eat.:laughing:

We never made sausage or canned any, but sure ate plenty of fried rabbit, rabbit & dumplings, and such. And when I got a big old jackrabbit that was expected to be tough, it got boiled, boned, and run through the meat grinder and the already cooked, ground up meat either went into gravy to be served on hot biscuits, or it was made into sandwich meat by adding chopped boiled egg, onion, pickle, and Miracle Whip.

 

[dave1949]

Back during the dark ages of WWII, my folks raised rabbits because meat was rationed. I have eaten so much wild rabbit when I was growing up that domestic, farm raised rabbit just doesn't taste good to me.

I haven't eaten rabbit in years. We used to enjoy wild cotton tails during hunting season, especially the ones that were taken with a good leading head shot. :laughing: Domestic breeds are so bland tasting, I guess due to a lack of fat, that most recipes for rabbit include lots of added flavoring.

I haven't checked this in many years, maybe some modern breeds of hogs and chickens are catching up, but domestic rabbits are one of the best feed pounds to meat pounds converters.

 

[Bird]

I haven't checked this in many years, maybe some modern breeds of hogs and chickens are catching up, but domestic rabbits are one of the best feed pounds to meat pounds converters.

And they also produce the best fertilizer you'll ever find for your garden.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I haven't eaten rabbit in years. We used to enjoy wild cotton tails during hunting season, especially the ones that were taken with a good leading head shot. :laughing: Domestic breeds are so bland tasting, I guess due to a lack of fat, that most recipes for rabbit include lots of added flavoring.

I haven't checked this in many years, maybe some modern breeds of hogs and chickens are catching up, but domestic rabbits are one of the best feed pounds to meat pounds converters.

That's funny. My Dad always said that a head shot with a .22 short was what he expected; 22 shells were for putting meat on the table, not for fun!

 

[dmccarty]

When we were looking at land to buy we always ended up with a nickname for the places we we visited. Not sure how we arrived at the names but they became obvious. The last two places we thought about buying were called Rabbit Man and Chicken Man. Chicken Man was because the owner, who had to be in his 80s was a chicken farmer and I don't think he bathed any more than his chickens. :confused2:

Rabbit Man was a place that was a mess. It was owned by a man who was obviously hiding his ownership because he was selling the place but it was owned by his sister. :confused3: He lived on the place in a non motorized school bus and a few sheds attached to said bus. There were batteries, old cars, old boats, trash, extension cords, 55 gallon drums of who knows what, and a huge pile of cages. The place was a mess. I never did find the outhouse hole but I looked. It might have been on the neighbors land but that is another story.

Talking to the neighbors, the "owner" raised rabbits in the cages which used to be for chickens. He would eat the rabbits AND sell them locally. Thus we called the place Rabbit Man. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[mjarrels]

Use to be fed fried rabbit and roast duck all the time when I was stationed with the Navy in Panama City Fl... small galley. Never had it while in the Fleet Navy.

mark

 

[Bird]

That's funny. My Dad always said that a head shot with a .22 short was what he expected; 22 shells were for putting meat on the table, not for fun!

That's what I used for the most part. I started with a single shot bolt action Remington and didn't waste ammo on running shots; only still shots. Later I traded up to semi-auto Stevens rifle; didn't get any more game, but used more ammo. I've used both .12 and .410 gauge on rabbits and squirrels but never liked that because I didn't like picking the shot out of the meat.

 

[dave1949]

That's funny. My Dad always said that a head shot with a .22 short was what he expected; 22 shells were for putting meat on the table, not for fun!

Ha! Our rabbit hunting was always in combination with ring neck pheasants. We used shotguns and a Brittany Spaniel. The dog would run a rabbit now and then, but he always came back with the rabbit in his mouth and not chewed up.

Bird, I used rabbit manure a bit when I tried raising meat rabbits, it does have a gentle, lasting "push" to it is the impression I had.

 

[don45640]

Actually,per my òl Grandpa,born in 1886,you don't EVER shoot a rabbit sitting,because you need to see it run to know it's healthy. I live by that,except.....there aren't hardly any rabbits here anymore. Coyotes gettin'them,along with feral cats. don-ohio ^)

That's funny. My Dad always said that a head shot with a .22 short was what he expected; 22 shells were for putting meat on the table, not for fun!

 

[don45640]

Yeah,you can believe in the Neanderthal fairy tale if you want...LOL! God created this earth and the universe,too.Yes,the universe may be billions of years old,the earth,too,the Bible doesn't dispute that. The `creative'days He worked in to put life on here may have been thousands of years long for EACH creative day,and probably were.
But everything was made after it's KIND,and 'the Devil's lie', evolution, was not a part of it. don-ohio ^)

Rabbits are small, fast, and devilishly hard to catch. And that could have had dire consequences for Neanderthals.

A new study suggests that an inability to shift from hunting large mammals to wild rabbits and other small game may have contributed to the downfall of European Neanderthals during the Middle Paleolithic period, about 30,000 years ago.
...

"We show in our study that [modern humans] used rabbits extensively, but Neanderthals didn't."



Failure to Hunt Rabbits Part of Neanderthals' Demise?

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Yeah,you can believe in the Neanderthal fairy tale if you want...LOL! God created this earth and the universe,too.Yes,the universe may be billions of years old,the earth,too,the Bible doesn't dispute that. The `creative'days He worked in to put life on here may have been thousands of years long for EACH creative day,and probably were.
But everything was made after it's KIND,and 'the Devil's lie', evolution, was not a part of it. don-ohio ^)

Don, you obviously don't believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible; I'm curious as to how you can discount evolution in light of the overwhelming geological and fossil evidence?

 

[Lou66]

I can remember as a child,, setting along a rabbit trail in the snow waiting with my single shot break over 22,, old log for a seat, keep quiet and very little movement,, early in the morning or late in the afternoon,, we only hunted rabbit after the first snow,, something about worms,, but I always thought hot hog lard with take care of that.. lo..Lou

 

[Bird]

Lou, I was taught to not hunt rabbits during months that did not have an "R" in the name (same as not eating oysters those months). So the rabbits were only safe in my part of the country May, June, and July. And you're right about the worms; bot fly larvae, I think, also known as "wolves" that burrowed under the skin. I understand they don't actually harm the meat; just that they're too unappetizing in appearance for lots of folks, including me.:laughing: I've even shot a few rabbits to eat, started skinning, and then threw them away when I saw those things.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Lou, I was taught to not hunt rabbits during months that did not have an "R" in the name (same as not eating oysters those months). So the rabbits were only safe in my part of the country May, June, and July. And you're right about the worms; bot fly larvae, I think, also known as "wolves" that burrowed under the skin. I understand they don't actually harm the meat; just that they're too unappetizing in appearance for lots of folks, including me.:laughing: I've even shot a few rabbits to eat, started skinning, and then threw them away when I saw those things.

My Dad wouldn't let us kill a rabbit until after the first hard freeze. He said it killed off the sick ones; we usually didn't shoot them in the Summer, only in the Winter. I think Tularemia was what he was worried about.

 

[Bird]

I think rabbit hunting is traditionally a Winter sport, but since we were never sports hunters, we wanted to eat year round.:laughing:

Shooting rabbits at night with a .12 gauge in the pasture from a fender of my 1946 Chevy sedan was definitely for both sport and food, though.:laughing: My driver was usually pretty good, but the night he was concentrating on keeping a jackrabbit in the headlights, trying to overtake it, and hit a terrace just as I pulled the trigger on that old double barrelled .12 gauge . . . well, did you ever see anyone do a back flip off a car fender? Fortunately no serious damage, but it's not something I'd want to do again.