ramblingrabbit
Well-known member
I was musing about this:
We almost always take access to refridgeration and freezers as a given when people talk about raising their own meat. And we always talk about "freezer camp." But suppose you had no refridgeration or freezer technology whatsoever (it could be you live in an undeveloped country, or in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, or just can't afford electricity, or whatever--it doesn't matter). You want to raise rabbits for meat. You might be able to dry some meat, of course, but only if weather conditions and such permit, so we can't count on that. What would be the best way to structure your breeding schedules and such as to be able to work with this? You'd want to have fryers of a decent size to make a meal, but of course you can't keep fryers around forever in a growout hutch, because they'll start mating and fighting at some point, so you'd have to plan it out and stagger kindlings. Feed would be a consideration too, but could be mitigated by feeding a forage-based or low-cost diet (which you would presumably find attractive if you were a farmer of modest means in an undeveloped country area, or in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where feed stores were already empty).
I would just try to split the difference with my fryers, starting to eat them one by one when they were on the small side, say at like 2 1/2 months, and continue eating them through 3 1/2, timing the next litter to be reaching the 2 1/2 month mark by that point. Total labor would be less efficient killing and cleaning them like that, but rabbits are so quick and tidy to do it wouldn't be a big deal. Some meals would be a little on the small side, but I'd at least have a continuous supply of meat, and feed saved by slaughtering some younger would go toward keeping the others longer--although it still wouldn't be as efficient as slaughtering them all at 3 months, since a bigger rabbit would eat more during the same time.
Having larger feasts more often should be more economical though. Or if you scaled this up with more does, and tightened the time in between breedings so that you were breeding successfully every week or so, then a whole village could be supplied with steady fryers at a nearly optimal slaughter weight, but it seems you would have to have a very steady supply, and a well-organized distribution system, or the whole thing would become unwieldy very, very fast!
We almost always take access to refridgeration and freezers as a given when people talk about raising their own meat. And we always talk about "freezer camp." But suppose you had no refridgeration or freezer technology whatsoever (it could be you live in an undeveloped country, or in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, or just can't afford electricity, or whatever--it doesn't matter). You want to raise rabbits for meat. You might be able to dry some meat, of course, but only if weather conditions and such permit, so we can't count on that. What would be the best way to structure your breeding schedules and such as to be able to work with this? You'd want to have fryers of a decent size to make a meal, but of course you can't keep fryers around forever in a growout hutch, because they'll start mating and fighting at some point, so you'd have to plan it out and stagger kindlings. Feed would be a consideration too, but could be mitigated by feeding a forage-based or low-cost diet (which you would presumably find attractive if you were a farmer of modest means in an undeveloped country area, or in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where feed stores were already empty).
I would just try to split the difference with my fryers, starting to eat them one by one when they were on the small side, say at like 2 1/2 months, and continue eating them through 3 1/2, timing the next litter to be reaching the 2 1/2 month mark by that point. Total labor would be less efficient killing and cleaning them like that, but rabbits are so quick and tidy to do it wouldn't be a big deal. Some meals would be a little on the small side, but I'd at least have a continuous supply of meat, and feed saved by slaughtering some younger would go toward keeping the others longer--although it still wouldn't be as efficient as slaughtering them all at 3 months, since a bigger rabbit would eat more during the same time.
Having larger feasts more often should be more economical though. Or if you scaled this up with more does, and tightened the time in between breedings so that you were breeding successfully every week or so, then a whole village could be supplied with steady fryers at a nearly optimal slaughter weight, but it seems you would have to have a very steady supply, and a well-organized distribution system, or the whole thing would become unwieldy very, very fast!
