Flavor Question

[xlt]

OK, so I was skimming through one of the ebooks from this site Practical Rabbit Keeping. It mentions that the flavor of a white rabbit was not considered as good as a colored variety.

Anybody experienced this? I am getting out of the white rabbits completely, but I have to admit to this point I have only eaten one non-white rabbit. It was a cottontail and I did prefer the flavor, but it was also nearly all dark meat.... and very small.

 

[Anntann]

A lot of the flavor depends on what they eat. (no clue about white vs colored...golly that sounds racist!). cottontails in the wild eat only grasses and fruits of course. They also move a LOT which brings more blood into the muscles..heck..it creates more muscle. So, like a free ranged chicken, the taste is quite different than one that is given grains/pellets and have no exercise.

I have found that the flavor of the colony rabbits, who get greens and run around in the colony, is stronger. Or rather...less bland on it's own. ...than the rabbits I've had who were raised in a normal domestic way..cages with pellets.

 

[Cattle Cait]

I don't know about the color vs. white rabbits, I know that certain breeds tend to taste better but its very slight. Cottontails though, since they're wild, have that delicious "gamey" taste, like venison and elk or whatever else comes from outside. Probably why colony rabbits taste stronger, since they're outside being happy rabbits too.

 

[xlt]

yeah, it sounds racist, except the rabbits are all the same race ... I would like to do a colony, except that my rabbits are a somewhat clandestine operation as it is...brought them in black helicopters and such...

 

[Anntann]

ahhhh... a STEALTH rabbitry! shhhhhhh....

 

[MaggieJ]

Cottontail is certainly different from domestic rabbit... but not due to its colouring. It is a different species and its diet also tends to give the meat a different flavour. I've eaten plenty of cottontail, young and old, and some was excellent and some just okay.

I don't personally think that the colour of the fur on domestic rabbits affects the flavour. You can have a mixed litter of meat mutts with a wide variety of colours and they all taste the same. Again, how the rabbits are fed may affect the flavour. I am biased towards rabbits raised on natural foods as opposed to pellets. I think there is definite difference... Others not so much.

 

[xlt]

that's kind of what I thought. Mine are mostly on pellets and hay at this point, have a good supply of purslane growing around most of the year which I add along with some herbs from the garden in small quantities (small garden+big family= not much left for rabbits )

 

[Jack]

So, I wonder if something that is grazed with wild onions and ramps etc. could be sold as 'pre seasoned'?

 

[eco2pia]

lol, too bad that the allium family is bad for them, huh? what about thyme? mmmm.

 

[Shara]

xlt, i thought it is funny, you have cages cause your being sneacky, and i have (had) a colony for the same reason! lolol

 

[xlt]

my sneakiness has to do with the perception of my neighbors and possibly city inspectors... if I just had a bunch of rabbits outdoors in penned enclosure it looks a lot more like rabbits "breeding like rabbits" to most people I guess.... regardless of whether there is buck even in the mix. Technically, I am way over the limit for city limits of five rabbits, though of adult breeding age rabbits I am only one over currently. I have 24 fryers in various stages of growth, but all under five weeks at this point.

 

[Miss M]

I understand the stealth rabbitry, too... we keep as low-key as possible, too. There does not appear to be a specific limit on rabbits here. I'm over what I want to have, because I've had to retire a buck (but he's a pet), and a dwarf doe pet came with our third brood doe, which was given to us. So I have 6 adult, permanent rabbits, where I would like to have 4. But at least I have a good buck and three brood does now.

Anyway, we happen to live next door to the block captain, who appears to be a member of a local animal shelter. She came over shortly after we started building the rabbitry, and the kids excitedly pulled her into the back patio where our rabbits were temporarily housed. They were very crowded, and the setup was difficult to keep clean, and I was horrified that she had seen it. I immediately called her attention to the rabbitry we were building, and explained that they would shortly be enjoying new, spacious, clean quarters. I ordinarily would have avoided letting any of our neighbors know that we had rabbits. Then I made the mistake of asking her for some trimmings from her elm trees (which were being pruned) for the rabbits. She said that would be fine, I could have all I liked. Then she asked if we still had all the rabbits that she had seen before, and I said no, we were down to 4. Her curiosity was aroused, and she wanted to know did we sell them, give them away... what did we do with the other rabbits? Cornered, I finally admitted that we raise them for meat. She recoiled a little, and I quickly told her that I hoped I didn't offend her, that I don't want to cause trouble, that we had started this because of the economy and the prices of groceries going up while my husband's pay remained the same. She processed it all, and even said she might try some rabbit as long as I prepared it. I like her, she is very nice, but her being the block captain and involved with the shelter makes me worried that she will try to find a reason to get rid of the rabbits.

Sneaky is good. I wish she didn't know about them. It worries me.

 

[Cattle Cait]

My 4-H leader keeps about 30 rabbits in two garden sheds behind her house in a very heavily populated suburban area. We always joked with her, little do the neighboring soccer moms in mini-vans know that Mrs. Jezuit kills rabbits at night in her backyard!

 

[Jack]

Oh, mine is quite stealth, had the neighbor next to me complain about the bunnies being too close to the hot tube if the wind was right, I moved them into the shed once it got done enough...

Funny was, she actually wanted the, um, compost for her flowers, told her come spring there will be plenty to share, she said she just like complaining... that being said, other then the strewn cage and the rolls of wire, not much to say how many I got.