Waste Not, Want Not

[Truckinguy]

So, last Saturday I butchered four rabbits and I found myself still processing rabbit products on Tuesday. This got me thinking about what I get from my rabbits. As some people have said, you don't have to actually sell rabbit products to consider it a profit, things that you use yourself can be considered profit too.

Here is what i get from four rabbits:

Eight back leg quarters, leg and thigh - four to eight meals depending how hungry I am
Four one-pound (approx) packages of meat (backstraps and belly flaps)which means four curry chicken recipes of which I get five meals out of each - twenty meals
Eight front legs, I just started saving these so not sure if that is one or two meals
Four rib/spine/tail sections for soup, two per pot which gives me eight bowls of soup per pot x two pots is sixteen bowls of soup
Liver, heart and kidneys, just can't bring myself to eat them yet... someday....
Four furs soaking in brine

So, by my calculations, I get 40+ meals out of four rabbits. I don't have a cost per bunny figure down solid yet but I'm working on that. I know all these meals include other ingredients but to take care of the meat ingredient on more than forty meals is something I'm pretty happy with. I also realize that me being single is different from many of you but instead of a meal you could consider it a serving so I could serve four people ten meals.

It's my ultimate goal to use as much of the rabbits a possible. As I get more comfortable with these ideas I can add more one at a time. My freezers are filling up....

 

[Shara]

if you learned how to tan with brain, you could use that part, too, and I have seen bunny ears as dog treats...back feet could be sold as lucky charms...some people eat eyes (not me,lol)

 

[Anntann]

And don't forget that lovely wonderful fertilizer!

That's a LOT of meals, Truckinguy! good lord. I hadn't thought about it in those numbers. I've been sort of vague about the amounts, but as I sit here typing, I'm thinking about all I did with just ONE rabbit. It is pretty amazing.

 

[ladysown]

you can sell the heads as dog treats.

 

[Truckinguy]

Hmm... not sure I'm going to go the brain tanning route, I"m learning the salt/alum method right now but I won't rule it out.

I've heard of the ears and heads for dog treats. I use a pellet gun to dispatch them so there is a pellet in the head. I would have to use another dispatching method which I'm not comfortable with at the moment so that is another project down the line.

The fertilizer angle is excellent! Right now I collect the bunny berries every day, soak them for an hour or two and add them to the worm bins. The worms are growing fat and sassy now, they're bigger and are multiplying like crazy! I have harvested seven bins now and I have two totes full of worm castings. This also brings another product onto the list, the water I soak the bunny berries in, it comes out like a dark brown tea, I'm sure it's wonderful for the garden.

Those meals don't have a huge amount of meat per meal, specially the soup, but it's good enough for me and quite tasty!

 

[MaggieJ]

You're definitely on the right track, Truckinguy... but you gotta try those livers soon. They are not like liver from other animals. Try frying them up in butter for a lunch and giving yourself permission to make a sandwich if you hate them. I'm pretty sure you won't need to make that sandwich!

There are three of us here, so I like to butcher in multiples of three. This means I can freeze the parts together for meals and come out even. Three rabbits would give us two meals of hind-quarters, one meal of loin (backstraps), one of belly flaps for stir fry, and a huge pot of soup from the rib cages, front legs and backbones etc. plus 1 meal of giblets. That's about 24 servings from three rabbits and it also gives lots of variety.

Sometimes, especially with older culls, I debone everything and just divide the meat into one meal packages. The meat that does not come off the bones easily goes into the soup pot. I usually snag the liver for my lunch.

And yes, that manure tea is excellent for your garden. Dilute it to half-strength and use it to water your plants. It will give amazing results.