Let's see your meat rabbits. After cooking is fine.

Here's some of my rabbits.

Californian


New Zealands










Champagne D'Argent









Keith

Great looking rabbits.

Awwwwwwe.. you aren't going to eat them!

They make more quickly and efficiently.

Keith

Which ones do the best in hot weather ?

That's a lot of hasenpfeffer.

What do you do with their fur?
My meat rabbits are still running around, they are ready about mid October

Of those shown, Californians and the Champagne D'Argents take hot temperatures the best. I also have Florida Whites, which do well in the heat too. Direct sunlight in hot weather, without shade, will kill rabbits quickly. A lot of bucks go temporarily sterile in really hot weather. Their testicles will extend really far out, to try keep the sperm cool enough to stay motile. You can put frozen 2 liter bottles in with buck rabbits, in 100F plus weather to keep them cool enough that their sperm can still swim well.

Last year I had a woman call me worried about "two horrible cancerous looking growths" that were sticking out of her rabbit. They were its balls. It was in the nineties. She was embarrassed after I explained what was going on.

High heat hurts human sperm's motility too. That's why men trying to have kids often wear boxers instead of briefs.

Keith

The fur gets ground into pet food for reptiles, with whole, frozen rabbits. There's not much of a market for raw rabbit pelts.

Diane wants to cure some Champagne D'Argent pelts.

Keith

The largest rabbits I keep are Flemish Giants. They are not a good meat rabbit. They have a poor meat to bone ratio. People keep them mostly as pets. The world record Flemish Giant weighed 49 pounds and was over 4' long. The heaviest I had and weighed was 28 pounds, at a healthy weight.

This doe is close to that.



This buck is lighter, but still a very large rabbit.




Keith

My brothers raised checkered giants for showing and eating during the 4-H days of our youth. They made excellent table fare and my folks co-workers were always eager to purchase any excess rabbit meat.

Best I can do...

I didn't think reptiles could digest fur.
There's a market for rabbit fur, you just gotta make some phone calls

Reptiles mostly eat whole prey. There's no way for a snake to take any prey animal apart and most lizards can't either. They digest fur well.

Whole ground prey is more nutritious for reptiles and can be cased into sausage for easy, mess free consumption.

Keith

Bingo!!

I've wanted to get back into rabbits, this is a dangerous thread. My daughter is 3, I think by 4 she can take care of rabbits with some help

We raised them coming up. Got pretty quick at peeling them. Mama used them in many of her chicken recipes. I was particularly partial to rabbit tetrazinni.

I prefer these as my bunny beef.


This was over 50 years ago when I was a skinny teenager!

Ol dad

I heard
that the Tamuk's were bred for the heat. Came out of Texas A&M. They told me the bucks are still good in high heat.