I don't know who said that about raising animals for food, (I'm sure I could google and find it, but.........) Anywho, I believe it to be true here at our little homestead.
Our animals are raised with love and affection and plenty of food and water. We take the steward-ship of our critters seriously and do our best to give them the best lives possible, until that one bad day.
Saturday was the one bad day for the rabbits, as well as four of our laying hens and the latest batch of quail.
I'll spare you any details about said bad day, because there are lots and lots of ways to get a rabbit (or a chicken or a quail) ready for the table.
As The Man is fond of saying.....
"There's more than one way to skin a cat, but if it's still got hair on it at the end, it ain't skint!"
And yes, that is a direct quote. It means there are a lot of ways to do something, and as long as it's right at the end, then it's the right way. If it isn't right at the end, then it's the wrong way!
Ahem....so I'm putting this picture in so that a rabbit carcass isn't what you see staring at you in your blog feed....
If you don't want to see a nekkid rabbit, please stop reading right now because the picture is below....
If you don't want to see a nekkid rabbit, please stop reading right now because the picture is below....
I'll add another gratuitous cute bunny shot so you've got time to look away...
Ok, one more and then the nekkid rabbit will show up....
So we processed all 7 of Eden's kits.
This is how they dressed out...
The buck weights were as follows..
Live weight - Dressed weight
4.36 - 2.09
4.98 - 2.44
5.09 - 2.48
The doe weights were...
4.83 - 2.44
5.05 - 2.47
4.17 - 2.15
4.15 - 2.09
I'm not exactly sure how to calculate dressed percentage, but I think it's around 50% which I consider to be not bad! That is also the weight of the rabbit only, I didn't weigh the liver, which we did keep from each rabbit. I didn't keep the heart or kidneys. We are happy with the results and are excited to see what the different crosses produce.
We had rabbit for supper on Sunday night and it was delicious! I took pictures for you, I promise I did, but when I went to download them from my camera, they weren't there so....
Until next time....
I'm not exactly sure how to calculate dressed percentage, but I think it's around 50% which I consider to be not bad! That is also the weight of the rabbit only, I didn't weigh the liver, which we did keep from each rabbit. I didn't keep the heart or kidneys. We are happy with the results and are excited to see what the different crosses produce.
We had rabbit for supper on Sunday night and it was delicious! I took pictures for you, I promise I did, but when I went to download them from my camera, they weren't there so....
Until next time....
God Bless,
I love that you gave us so many chances to not look... of course I looked.
ReplyDeleteBahaha! :)
DeleteIt's the natural way of things. And it's even better when those things taste good! Great new header picture. It looks like you will be planting soon, and I can always learn from other people's garden. I'm glad the snow has disappeared from your place.
ReplyDeleteI find your quail process to be very interesting. We've only incubated, hatched, raised, butchered and eaten chickens. You mentioned some of your laying hens had a bad day as well. I'd be interested in what happened to them.....
Fern
Good morning Fern! We just had too many laying hens. Since we've brought the quail into the mix we don't use many chicken eggs. We had 9 hens and were getting anywhere from 6 to 9 eggs a day, which tend to pile up in the fridge. We use the quail eggs for almost everything, such as fried for breakfast, or omelets or even deviled eggs. I do usually use the chicken eggs for baking. So anyway, 4 of the hens went into the freezer, which will leave us with 5 laying hens which is plenty for our needs. We'll start using more chicken eggs once the goats are back in milk because we make homemade ice cream about once a week or every two weeks, and I wouldn't want to use the quail eggs for that. It would take forever! :)
DeleteToday was the bad day for our bunnies, too. :)
ReplyDeleteYours look nice and meaty! What age did you butcher?
They were 10 weeks and 3 days old.... I'm happy with the size and meatiness of them!
DeleteI love that my freezer is stock with meat I've raised, including rabbit, chicken and duck.
ReplyDeleteYes it is a good feeling! We have pork we've raised, rabbits, chicken, quail, and deer (shot by a friend and dressed by us), as well as fish and turtle we catch. It's very nice not having to buy meat!
Delete