Tasty Treat
The other night while Johnny, Noah and I were doing the evening milking my brother stopped by the barn. He wondered if I wanted a hare that was gutted and dressed. Well, only a fool would turn down game that was already dressed! I said I sure would eat it, and he left it there for us to take home. He works in the fence business and his boss is a big time beagle man and gave him this hare. I’m used to cottontails and couldn’t get over how BIG this thing was. Got a decent meal out of one rabbit, thats a feat. I took him home and soaked him in salt water over night. Then I cut him up and rolled him in flour and fried him up in a cast iron skillet. Noah liked it, Johnny was disappointed becouse it wasn’t “gamey” enough to suit him. I wouldn’t mind having a few hutches out back and butcher some fryers every year. Our freinds and trapping partners in Alaska had a neat set up for rabbits. They kept them in a round chain link fenced corral. The rabbits dug burrows and lived under ground. They came up to eat and hop around but lived under the ground in this pen. I used to get pick up loads of “used produce”, the stuff that was past prime, from the little store in town. I would throw it in over the fence to them rabbits and they would come out gnaw away at that frozen produce. It was funny, a tomatoe gets hard as rock at 50 bellow zero, and those bunnies would chisel way at em. Hmmm, don’t know how I got off on that, except thats the last time I ate rabbit on a regular basis. Simple pleasures, thats the good life. Good memories of days gone by are icing on the cake I guess.
February 8th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
How’d you catch the rabbits in that round pen?
February 8th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
They would have the babies down in the holes. When they were fryer size they would be coming up with mom and eating so we’d give them some feed and catch them with a fish net. A real sport that was! The fast ones became breeding stock
February 9th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
That is interesting. We are planning on getting our first farm animals soon (chickens) and I have also been thinking of rabbits. We don’t have a lot of room and I thought chickens and rabbits would be good for a couple of acres. Thanks for this post.
February 10th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Silly question but I was just wondering what stoped them from burrowing under the fence?
February 11th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Hi Ginny
Rabbits are great for limited acreages. Nothing converts feed into meat better they say.
Gilbert
I was waiting for someone to ask that, its not a silly question at all. I can’t remember for sure but I think they fence went underground a few feet. It still seems like they could have burrowed under if they really wanted to. It was safe from predators and had lots of free and easy food…mabye they didn’t want to leave. This was the only time I ever saw rabbits raised this way, but it seemed to work for them.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:14 am
I’ve got an idea. Maybe rabbits never have two entrances to their nest. That is, once they dig down, they don’t dig back up on the other side instinctively. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a two hole burrow on the farm for anything.
March 8th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Hi Clint
That could very well be, I haven’t ever paid much attention to rabbit holes (truth be told).