I raise rabbits mostly for my own consumption, though from time to time, I will sell a few to offset the costs of feeding them. For the most part, I waste very little, and probably do close to breaking even on most months, give or take $20. I am always looking for a way to cut my costs or to increase my yields.
One way to cut costs has been to feed them from forage from my yard and surrounding areas. Feeding safe weeds to my rabbits has decreased their reliance on pellets, and made them more resilient should the pellet truck ever stop running.
I’ve recently found a way to increase my yields as well, not by producing more, but by wasting less.
- When harvested, I save the hide to be tanned by RidgeRunner.
- I remove the head and the entrails, saving the heart, kidneys, and liver to be made into what my youngest daughter calls “liver sausage”, her favorite part of the rabbit.
- I sometimes save the feet for RidgeRunner to be turned into trade items for his black powder rendezvous.
- I quarter the rabbits, setting the front shoulders aside, the rear quarters as well, leaving the ribs and back.
- From this I remove the boneless loins, THE cut of meat from a rabbit, that looks much like a chicken tenderloin.
- I also trim off all the meat I can from the ribs and back, and add it into the liver sausage mentioned above.
This leaves only the backbone and ribs with whatever tissue remains from my trimming them. I normally feed some of them to the dog, but toss the majority out in the trash.
My new routing now uses those bone scraps from the back and ribs to be made into stock. By adding onions, carrots, celery, ginger, and rosemary along with the rabbit bones all into a crockpot, I make a lovely broth for my own consumption, something I dearly appreciate on these cold winter days when the mercury drops into the 60’s. (Remember, I’ve lived here too long!)
Leaving it to slow cook overnight on low, I wake to the house smelling of soup, and usually start my day with a cup of the broth. In order to get the most out of my efforts, I then mix everything up with a stout spoon, dislodging the meat from the bones, and making the entire thing into a bowl that not even Dr. Temperance Brennan could reconstruct. I drain the liquid, along with some of the meat, and I turn the broth into an egg drop soup (from the free range eggs from the backyard, or course!).
The solids, I dish out to the dog, a little at a time, over the next few days, and just like when I would pull the smoked pork out of the fridge, my dog follows me around salivating on the floor, knowing she is about to get a treat.
Much like I extend my family’s food with the rest of the rabbit, I now use the leftovers I previously wasted to extend the dogs food, now that I have the means to break it up easily and thus allow me to store it. (The wife and kids REALLY don’t like opening the fridge to see a pile of rabbit carcasses!)
I realize this should have been a no-brainer, but somehow I missed the obvious. It happens. One of the reasons I try to keep reading as much as possible, I never know when or where I’ll find something that improves my situation.
Or my dog’s 🙂
Peace,
db
Nice one. My dog loves the heads of rabbits, chickens, ducks, etc. It’s her slaughter-day treat. My slaughter-day treat is the livers and kidneys, fried up with eggs for lunch (I usually only kill 1-3 animals at a time). I’ll have to try your breakfast sausage, though, that sounds good!
I’ve not offered the heads, though I should…
Funny story about my dog and the rabbit harvest…
When we first got the dog, she followed me every second of my time spent in the back yard. As I gathered all my equipment to start harvesting rabbits, she stayed close, watching my every move. She was even more intrigued as I removed a rabbit from its cage and carried it over to the harvest area.
As I set the rabbit down to be dispatched via a sharp blow to the head, the dog moved even closer…until I struck the rabbit, killing it.
I SWEAR the dog’s eyes got big, she did let out a whimper, and ran into the house, avoiding me for several weeks, apparently thinking she might be next on the list.
She got over it as I started to feed her rabbit bits…
🙂
Would you share how you make the sausage? I will have my first bunch of rabbits to butcher soon and I am interested in using all of it that I can.
The easiest way is simply buy some Hi Mountain breakfast sausage spice mix
I use the Original, but I’ve not found one of their products that isn’t pretty good. BlueTang and I often talk about recipes for jerky and sausage, and how long it takes to come up with a sure-fire flavor that just works. As many times that we’ve tried making our own, or trying someone’s recipe, we’ve rarely pretty excited about the results. It might be good, but never great, and rarely worth doing again. So we almost always end up just buying one of the name brand spice packs, they’ve already done all the fine tuning to get a finished product that works well.
Having said that, if I don’t have any premade spices, I’ll take whatever scraps I can whittle off of the carcass, along with the liver, kidneys, and heart, and grind it roughly through my stand mixed grinding attachment, it works well enough for a few rabbits. Once ground, I then throw in a tablespoon of onion powder, garlic powder, sage, and black pepper, plus a teaspoon of Publix season salt. Mix it all together in a bowl, then sprinkle it over the ground rabbit. Mix it well, then fry a spoon full of the sausage in a hot pan with some butter. Let it cool and taste it. Adjust the spices as you see fit, frying a spoonful and trying each adjustment. Make a note of what adjustments work for you, then start there the next time.
Its not a cured product, so be sure to keep it refrigerated and use it up within a week or less. If you get the spices right, lasting a week would be a miracle 🙂
Hope that helps!
db
One more question about the rabbit sausage. Do you always add some sort and some amount of meat to the kidneys, heart, and liver?
I always add whatever extra meet I can get off of the rabbit carcass, and sometimes the fat from around the kidneys, if there is any. But I don’t add in meat from any other animal, just whatever I can gather from the rabbits after cutting it up. And no particular portion amounts, either, I just throw it all together, add spices, and give it a try.
hi,
Great article.. sure my dog love this, but i really find it hard to find time to do stuff like this, even if I think it may be great for my dog to do it more then I do.. we use hills mobility it have oils and other great stuff and then from time to time give him big bones with lots of works for him to keep him happy.
Thanks
Jacob