Ive flicked through club member adam danforths book a few times the butchering poultry rabbits lamb etc.
Has anyone considered farming rabbits for their own comsumption or for that matter hens. My granny used to keep hens and bantams a few geese that met the pt at xmas. She had a pig at one stage too.
In those days a man towing a large tub run around town getting scraps from households for his pigs we kept a bucket outside backdoor for it for pig slop.
But Id think rabbits and chickens are small scale less hassle. Anyone do it and is it good eating or have you all enough to do at work.
Irishdude, when I was a teenager my grandfather and grandmother raised me and along with me they raised chickens and rabbits. Chickens for the eggs and rabbits for the meat. Sometimes he would kill a chicken for a special Sunday dinner like if our priest came to eat with us or other family members. He killed rabbits weekly. I will tell you this much rabbit meat is excellent, and my grandmother use to fry the garlic cloves first in her black-iron skillet then add good olive oil. The rabbit meat was dredged in flour which contained salt and pepper and rosemary. I could it rabbit that way until I fell off the chair.
As for chickens, and I love chicken meat now; I couldn't eat the chickens he killed. I happen to be standing near his wooden block one day when he killed a chicken and although he thought it was funny he scared the hell out of me by letting the chicken go and the poor thing started running with out his head and splashed blood on my socks. That did it. I never ate another chicken until I got married. My wife re-introduced chicken meat to me and I was hooked.
I was 10 years old and there was a family gathering at my uncle's farm. For whatever reason, he decided it was time to butcher all his chickens. My dad had the axe. He cut the head off the first chicken and it sprayed blood all over him and he wasn't pleased. So my grandma (an old southern lady) pointed out a less messy way. She told him to twist the chicken's head around 3 times then throw it at the fence. That worked better for my dad, but it was interesting watching all those chickens with broken necks running around.
We had rabbits at one time on our farm while I was growing up. I was probably around 14. I studied on the best way to break the rabbits neck when it was time for butchering, but that was not working for my dad and uncle. They decided to take a heavy bat and knock them out.
Rabbit farming is a good idea. I might look into that for myself. It could beat the beef prices.
