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Hahaha also holy poo poo your post history is creepy. All the more evidence prospective vet techs are assumed to be weirdos who think working with animals will save them from a future of interacting with other human beings.
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| # ? May 24, 2012 10:17 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 01:10 |
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I really really want to be able to raise my own meat but in the course of studying Animal Science, I have found that I cannot dissect worth a drat. I think it may be the smell of the curatives in the lab but when we had a fresh piglet (we have a piggery on campus so students get stillborns and overlaids - always in supply!). I was fine once someone else cut it open - I cut up the sternum and moved the organs around but I was disappointed in myself for not being able to make the first incisions because I think raising your own meat is awesome. I love what you're doing with the pelts as well, nothing goes to waste.
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| # ? May 24, 2012 12:10 |
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IoT posted:I may have missed it but I'm guessing the reason you are trying to selectively breed for particular markings rather than exclusively for meat is for the pelts? Yes, I use the pelts for fur and felt and these colours/markings give me more creative options. I'm going to establish chocolate and magpie in my lines, then start breeding for improved meat conformation. It will be easy enough because, for various nerdy genetics reasons, breeding a magpie to a red eyed white or himalayan coloured rabbit will always result in magpie offspring. Of the two main commercial rabbit breeds, New Zealand Whites are REW and Californians are himalayan  .
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| # ? May 24, 2012 12:41 |
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Please don't listen to the idiotic FYAD wannabes, this is a Good Thread and it is my opinion that honest discussion of where food comes from is a Good Thing.
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| # ? May 25, 2012 01:53 |
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This is absolutely nothing like the Pepito incident 
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| # ? May 25, 2012 07:50 |
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Cat Plant posted:I really really want to be able to raise my own meat but in the course of studying Animal Science, I have found that I cannot dissect worth a drat. I think it may be the smell of the curatives in the lab but when we had a fresh piglet (we have a piggery on campus so students get stillborns and overlaids - always in supply!). I was fine once someone else cut it open - I cut up the sternum and moved the organs around but I was disappointed in myself for not being able to make the first incisions because I think raising your own meat is awesome. Hmm. I really enjoyed necropsies because I didn't have the pressure of keeping the animal alive and calm. Plus it's awesome to cut open the different organs and structures and see anomalies. My class sort of cheated though, we spritzed the dental fluoride foam on our masks so we couldn't smell anything.
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| # ? May 26, 2012 03:43 |
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I really wish I knew enough about breeding rabbits to make NZ Reds have all the meatiness of NZ Whites. Their fur is so awesome looking, I just want to eat two hundred of them and make a giant blanket.
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| # ? May 26, 2012 04:08 |
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Hey if any of you ladies want to meet up after work and experience the full range of our mammalian emotions hit me up with a PM.
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| # ? May 26, 2012 15:11 |
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Cat Plant posted:(we have a piggery on campus so students get stillborns and overlaids - always in supply!) Pardon my ignorance, but what is an overlaid? Google suggests that those are piglets that get crushed by their mothers but it seems a bit odd that such a thing would happen. OP, as you are breeding for both coat and meat, have you found any correlation between the two thus far?
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| # ? May 28, 2012 05:15 |
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Jeek posted:Pardon my ignorance, but what is an overlaid? Google suggests that those are piglets that get crushed by their mothers but it seems a bit odd that such a thing would happen. Google is correct. One of the big issues surrounding piggeries is the use of farrowing crates - they prevent the sow from doing anything other than standing, sitting or laying in one spot. There are bars that 'slow her descent' so she's less likely to squash them but it still happens. Some huge percentage of piglet mortalities occur in the first 3 days after birth - usually being squished by a fat momma.
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| # ? May 28, 2012 08:52 |
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Jeek posted:OP, as you are breeding for both coat and meat, have you found any correlation between the two thus far? There isn't a correlation in the sense of 'red rabbits are meatier/more delicious than white rabbits', but there is an association between age and both meat and coat quality. A <12 week old rabbit will have meat that is most suitable for frying and fibre that is most suitable for felting. As the rabbit gets older, the meat gets progressively tougher and the adult coat begins to grow in. Adult coat is less suitable for felting, but produces very nice fur. However, by the time the adult coat has fully grown in (9-12 months) the meat will be very tough and best suited to stewing. I'm concentrating more on felt than fur at the moment because raising a litter to 12 weeks is easier and more delicious than raising a litter to 9 months .
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| # ? Jun 2, 2012 03:49 |
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I bought a rabbit at the local market and was going to make Jamie Oliver's rabbit ragu, are there any recipes that are technically more delicious or do you think this will taste pretty good? Here is his recipe, with delicious looking ingredients and possibly the world's dumbest method. I was going to disassemble the rabbit as per your guide and add the bones in a cheesecloth bag separately for easy removal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kKyKcQv5zw
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| # ? Jun 2, 2012 04:33 |
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Holy crap your rabbits are sooo much easier to de-bone than the wild ones i've shot before... High speed projectiles tend to shatter rabbit bones  Definately going to have to try some of your recipies too.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 14:29 |
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Ferremit posted:Holy crap your rabbits are sooo much easier to de-bone than the wild ones i've shot before... High speed projectiles tend to shatter rabbit bones A Good Dog is the way to hunt rabbits... I've never eaten shot rabbit and I'm not sure I'd want to!
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 19:11 |
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Filboid Studge posted:A Good Dog is the way to hunt rabbits... I've never eaten shot rabbit and I'm not sure I'd want to! It's easier to let a dog get them, by far, but IMO it's much more fun and challenging to let a dog drive them in front of your gun. Some people use a .22, which is easy to remove, but even shot is simple to get out of the meat. If you don't pick it out with some tweezers when you clean it then it'll turn up while you prep the meat for cooking.
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| # ? Jun 19, 2012 13:18 |
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demozthenes posted:It's easier to let a dog get them, by far, but IMO it's much more fun and challenging to let a dog drive them in front of your gun. Some people use a .22, which is easy to remove, but even shot is simple to get out of the meat. If you don't pick it out with some tweezers when you clean it then it'll turn up while you prep the meat for cooking. or in the bottom of your toilet bowl in about a day and a half.
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| # ? Jun 20, 2012 13:44 |
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Oh, hey thread! notsoape posted:A <12 week old rabbit will have meat that is most suitable for frying and fibre that is most suitable for felting. As the rabbit gets older, the meat gets progressively tougher and the adult coat begins to grow in. Adult coat is less suitable for felting, but produces very nice fur. However, by the time the adult coat has fully grown in (9-12 months) the meat will be very tough and best suited to stewing. I'm concentrating more on felt than fur at the moment because raising a litter to 12 weeks is easier and more delicious than raising a litter to 9 months The reason for no updates is because I've been kind of slow dispatching this latest litter, and I also haven't done any cooking yet. I have three adult rabbits in the freezer, plus four younger ones, but I've kept giving the final four from that ~reprieves~ because the weather has been so nice and the grass has been so awesome. They must be five months old by now, which - if you check the above quote - is 1) too late for tender frying meat, 2) too late for good felting fibre and 3) too early for good fur.  . Oh well, let's pretend I did it on purpose to get good roasting meat!I swear I will cook something soon, but all I have for now are pictures of happy rabbits playing in the long grass. I will post some of these shortly!
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| # ? Jun 20, 2012 21:04 |
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Another report from the kitchen frontlines: bunny with white wine & mustard sauce is yummy bunny.
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| # ? Jun 21, 2012 07:03 |
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 oh my god that looks amazing. Recipe?
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| # ? Jun 21, 2012 07:07 |
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notsoape posted:
Thanks! I was very happy with how it turned out, having never made a sauce of that sort before. I more or less followed this recipe. The only significant changes I made were that I fried up some bacon ends&pieces and fried the bunny in that fat, rather than butter (I also added the bacon back to the sauce when I added the rabbit back), I substituted chicken stock for water, and I tempered the heavy cream before adding it. The sides, if you're curious about those as well, were pretty simple: 1. Sweet potato slices with sea salt, black pepper, and oregano. 2. Brussels sprouts with garlic, onion, salt&pepper, and a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Roasted both of these at 400F for about 30 minutes while the bunny braised. The goony pile on the left in the picture is the bacon ends.
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| # ? Jun 21, 2012 07:48 |
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Let's cook a rabbit!  Today I am doing a roast. I'm following Delia's recipe. Do Americans know about Delia Smith? Anyway! Roasted Rabbit and Bacon with Thyme First, weigh - and analyse the conformation of - your rabbit      This guy actually has pretty neat conformation! Who knew! Let's also check out his fibre;  Not bad, not bad at all. Now we slaughter;  Skin  Degut  The pelt;  The good stuff;  These are the ingredients Delia called for; Ingredients 1 lb 4 oz (560 g) wild rabbit joints, or boneless rabbit, same weight 12 rashers dry-cure streaky bacon, derinded and cut in half 1 large onion, peeled and sliced finely into rings 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 level tablespoon fresh chopped thyme, plus a few sprigs 10 fresh sage leaves dipped in olive oil salt and freshly milled black pepper Obviously I did not use wild rabbit, and I also didn't joint it, I just roasted it whole. She also gave recipes for stuffing and sauce, neither of which I used. The full recipe(s) are here Woop;   I used fancy-pants outdoor reared bacon, because I think the conditions factory farmed pigs are reared in are abominable   Line your roasting pan with onion rings  Sprinkle with thyme (chopped with some sprigs) and crushed garlic.  Put your bunny to bed (after seasoning)  Give him a bacon blanket Roast for 20 minutes, then take out and put some olive-oil-coated sage leaves on top of the bacon  Roast for another 20 minutes or so, until the bacon is golden and crispy  Nom.  I was expecting the rabbit to be a bit more golden brown than this, so it could probably have done with longer in the oven. Too bad I was hungry and decided to just eat it as it was . The bacon made the rabbit really, really juicy and all the herbs worked together to give it a super nice flavour. Overall it was delicious, and I'll probably cook to this recipe again for family.Now, here are some cute bunny pictures!                     
notsoape fucked around with this message at Jun 29, 2012 around 12:58 |
| # ? Jun 29, 2012 12:55 |
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So delicious looking. Man, I'm going to have to talk to one of the local farmers I know and see if I can buy one of their rabbits just to try the roast. And those last two black kits are so adorable, eating on that towel. 
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| # ? Jun 29, 2012 14:26 |
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Balancing Monsters posted:Another report from the kitchen frontlines: bunny with white wine & mustard sauce is yummy bunny. gotta say, this looks great. bunny with white wine and mustard sauce is now on my todo list.
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| # ? Jun 30, 2012 08:09 |
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The rabbit isn't going to brown when covered up with bacon. If you want to brown up the rabbit itself, remove the bacon towards the end of roasting.
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| # ? Jul 1, 2012 15:06 |
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Have you ever considered rabbit jerky?
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| # ? Jul 1, 2012 20:17 |
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mich posted:The rabbit isn't going to brown when covered up with bacon. If you want to brown up the rabbit itself, remove the bacon towards the end of roasting. yeah, to be honest, I have no idea why anyone covers anything with bacon. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love bacon, but it doesn't do anything at all to help with "moisture", and it prevents the actual meat you're cooking from browning and developing flavor - and in my experience the bacon sitting on top of the meat doesn't really do much as far as adding flavor. If you're just trying to add meat/bulk between the heat source and what you're cooking, you can just adjust your cooking technique to compensate - IE, with poultry, I cook back side up for the majority of the cooking time, then flip over for the breast to brown, which prevents it from overcooking too. actually though I take that back - all meatloaf should be covered with bacon. not that I have ever cooked meatloaf, but choking it down is hard enough on its own - definitely benefits from the bacon on top.
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| # ? Jul 2, 2012 01:43 |
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mindphlux posted:yeah, to be honest, I have no idea why anyone covers anything with bacon. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love bacon, but it doesn't do anything at all to help with "moisture", and it prevents the actual meat you're cooking from browning and developing flavor - and in my experience the bacon sitting on top of the meat doesn't really do much as far as adding flavor. I generally agree with this opinion, but I think with very lean meats, it might be helpful by acting like a baster? (Kind of like cooking something fat side up.) I think it might just benefit from having the bacon removed and finished off under the broiler. Opinions?
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| # ? Jul 2, 2012 01:52 |
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Rurutia posted:I generally agree with this opinion, but I think with very lean meats, it might be helpful by acting like a baster? (Kind of like cooking something fat side up.) I think it might just benefit from having the bacon removed and finished off under the broiler. Opinions? hmm, well, I mean... basting sounds like a great idea, but I think it's a little kitsch-y to me - just because : A. basting is ostensibly trying to 'keep/lock moisture in' the meat, right? preventing it from drying out and being unpalatable. B. the thing is, basting is usually done with fat - IE, the bacon strips we're talking about render their fat out, or you pick up the drippings from a turkey with your baster and squirt them back over the bird C. I don't know why I'm using letters to accentuate my train of thought, but I'm going to continue. D. Fat != moisture, as far as I'm concerned. I love fat, and it can contribute to a 'juicy mouthfeel' I guess (pulled pork is an example, which I just smoked a butt today and ended up dousing the final pulled pork with some of the fat to enhance 'juciness', as a case in point). But, when you're talking about a dry piece of rabbit or poultry, surrounding it with grease isn't going to make it more moist. E. the problem with moisture in meat is that it tends to leave when you're heating it, because the proteins in the meat contract, you're putting it in a hot environment, etc F. so the logical thing is either to introduce more water to begin with (IE brine), cook it a shorter amount of time (or at a less high temperature), or to cook it gently in a moisture rich environment (sous-vide, braising, etc) G. anyways, while I guess basting (in the traditional sense, not covering things with bacon) could help meats more evenly brown, I'm not really sold on their helping as far as the moisture and appealing texture of meat goes. H. I made it to H.
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| # ? Jul 2, 2012 06:42 |
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mindphlux posted:actually though I take that back - all meatloaf should be covered with bacon. not that I have ever cooked meatloaf, but choking it down is hard enough on its own - definitely benefits from the bacon on top. I'm sad for you that you've never had good meat loaf
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| # ? Jul 2, 2012 10:52 |
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poo poo, that bacon-coated roast rabbit looks really, really good. Is my local butchers likely to have rabbit in? Or would it be a special order type thing? I want to try eating a bunny.
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| # ? Jul 2, 2012 11:39 |
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They probably won't have it in stock, but any butcher that isn't going out of business soon will know how to order a rabbit for you.
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| # ? Jul 2, 2012 15:54 |
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I've seen frozen whole rabbit in the mid-upper grocery stores, like New Seasons, Whole Foods, and Market of Choice. Not sure if you have anything like that in your area, but it's worth checking out if there's one nearby, may be more convenient than getting a butcher to special order every time. I also found that you can buy rabbit meat on Amazon, the page for which is...interesting. Most helpful customer review on Amazon posted:I know what it's like to be a feral dog The user submitted pictures for this item also seem to have an agenda.
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| # ? Jul 2, 2012 16:37 |
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Fraction lives in the North of England though - you will not be able to find domestic rabbit in traditional butchers shops there. You *may* be able to find it in ethnic grocery shops - I've found it in Turkish shops in London, but I don't know about further north. Another option would be ordering from http://www.woldsway.co.uk but that's expensive. Some butchers may have wild rabbit for sale, but probably not in the city and most rabbiting takes place September-April. It wouldn't hurt to ask if they could order some in for you, but I've had butchers just blink at me in the past. If worst comes to worst, I don't live too far away so maybe I could hook you up .Jerky; yup, I've tried it in the past, it was really delicious and I love how inventive you can be with marinades. Rabbit is a great meat for jerky-ing, since it is so low in fat. I do want a proper dehydrator though. The bacon discussion is interesting. I've never questioned the traditional wisdom that rabbit, being one of the leanest meats, needs extra fat from bacon or basting if you're going to roast it. I'm kind of intrigued now, and wondering about repeating that recipe without the bacon? It might be an interesting experiment, and if it turns out dry and gross the meat could always go to the dogs... Here are some pictures showing the difference between the roasted loin meat and roasted leg meat - you can see that the loin is similar in texture to chicken breast, and the leg meat looks like... leg meat.    
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| # ? Jul 2, 2012 17:37 |
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demozthenes posted:It's easier to let a dog get them, by far, but IMO it's much more fun and challenging to let a dog drive them in front of your gun. Some people use a .22, which is easy to remove, but even shot is simple to get out of the meat. If you don't pick it out with some tweezers when you clean it then it'll turn up while you prep the meat for cooking. Fair enough! Different hunting culture I guess- I couldn't cope with having a dog in front of the gun for any game without wings. I really, really want some rabbit. I wish I could still take a lurcher out
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| # ? Jul 3, 2012 02:19 |
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You used Photobucket for the old thread and now all the images are gone. I wanted to see that pie, one last time... But thanks for the threads, they are definitely interesting to read. Growing your own food looks something I wish I could try but even if I had space for it, I don't have money for it other than keeping jar of fresh mint at windowstill.
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| # ? Jul 3, 2012 06:49 |
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notsoape, I just wanted to let you know that this thread was the straw that broke my husband's back in my fight to raise farm animals. He's been refusing to get chickens or rabbits because "This isn't a farm. We live in the city, damnit!" but now he's making plans to build a few rabbit hutches and has already called out landlord about it. We're going to start out with one buck and doe and start breeding this fall. Long story short, you're my hero.
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| # ? Jul 3, 2012 22:11 |
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Mr Kapu posted:notsoape, I just wanted to let you know that this thread was the straw that broke my husband's back in my fight to raise farm animals. He's been refusing to get chickens or rabbits because "This isn't a farm. We live in the city, damnit!" but now he's making plans to build a few rabbit hutches and has already called out landlord about it. We're going to start out with one buck and doe and start breeding this fall. Oh that's so sweet . Do let me know if you have any questions or worries about what you're going to embark on - and read read read everything you can about rabbits, and meat rabbits in particular, before you get started. The three most important things are good hygiene, good welfare, and a good death for each rabbit at the end. Do either of you have experience with killing animals? My recommendation for newbies when it comes to that side of things is now a 'rabbit zinger' rather than a rabbit wringer - it's a captive bolt gun done by the same guy, and it's much more foolproof.
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| # ? Jul 4, 2012 18:45 |
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How does your dog know to kill wild rabbits but to leave your rabbits alone? How does someone even train a dog to differentiate like that? Never had a dog.
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| # ? Jul 4, 2012 19:10 |
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Boris Galerkin posted:How does your dog know to kill wild rabbits but to leave your rabbits alone? How does someone even train a dog to differentiate like that? Training. A lot of training, starting when she was a puppy. Dogs are pretty good at learning that they are allowed to behave in different ways depending on the location and circumstance. She knows that she is allowed to chase small furry things which are running in fields, but also that she is not allowed to chase the small & large furry things that hop in the runs in our garden. It isn't uncommon with hunting dogs, I've heard many stories about terriers whose job is to kill foxes chilling and playing with a pet fox living in their own home. It was really important to me to train her up to this level of obedience - part of being responsible about your huntin' dogs is making sure their prey drive has an off switch. It helps that she's really smart .
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| # ? Jul 4, 2012 20:07 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 01:10 |
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Is it just location then? If you take one of your rabbits and release it into the same hunting fields that your dog is allowed to kill in, would it kill it?
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| # ? Jul 4, 2012 20:22 |
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