Rabbits now city chickens
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| Backyard rabbit farming |
Backyard rabbits now city chickens
(Simple rabbit recipe)
By now we all know that eating a lot of meat-especially factory-farmed meat-isn't very good for the planet. Fortunately for meat eaters, some meats are more sustainable than others. And as it turns out, rabbit is one of the healthiest, leanest, and most environmentally friendly meats you can eat.
The biggest reason, when asked ‘why rabbits’, to most backyard breeders is rabbits are herbivores and consume large quantities of forage (greens), which people do not eat and convert this forage into valuable meat for human consumption. Practically, rabbits can be fed anything from the garden, forest or kitchen including banana and papaya (pawpaw) peels, pineapple cores, corn stalks, weeds, vines from pulses, leaves (cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, carrots) etc. This indicates that unlike chickens, rabbits compete minimally with humans for grains.
Rabbits are quiet and small, their meat is nutritious, litters (number per birth) are large with short generation intervals (meaning a quick economic return), rabbits can eat waste materials, and they are efficient at extracting protein from forage (Samkol and Lukefahr, 2008).
Rabbits have a much smaller carbon footprint than other animals because they convert calories into pounds more efficiently. According to Slow Food USA , "Rabbit can produce six pounds of meat on the same amount of feed and water it takes a cow to produce just one pound."
Leading food activists like Michael Pollan are also on the bandwagon. According to polland "Rabbit makes more sense than chickens in a lot of ways, and if people ate more rabbit, I think they would see that instantly. Rabbits are easier to slaughter, quieter than and not as stinky as chickens. I think it's a really good solution. We have rabbits and chickens in our neighbor's backyard, and we aren't aware of the rabbits. It's a cultural thing, we aren't as accustomed to eating rabbits, but rabbit is becoming a fashionable meat."
Biologically, their fast reproductive cycles encourage rapid generational assimilation. Rabbits, unlike chickens, quickly replenish their own stock. Being able to reproduce quickly and quietly are clear advantages that rabbits have over chickens-especially in densely populated areas. Unlike roosters, which are famously enthusiastic for crowing about their fecundity, rabbit bucks are known for being doers, not talkers. This noiseless intimacy means you can have both male and females together without annoying your neighbors.
Raising rabbit in my opinion is a natural extension of the "grow the naira" movement. If you are talking about being a Nigerian then even if you live in Asokoro or any city in Nigeria you wish to name, you need to grow your own food. If you choose to eat meat, this is a way to do that in a responsible manner. If every time you wanted to enjoy some flesh you first had to slaughter and butcher an animal, it is likely that you would simultaneously eat less meat and appreciate it more when you did.
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| Cute chicken |
But are rabbits just too adorable to devour?
No! Not for me, chickens are cute too. If you have a prohibition against eating rabbits, then you should too for chickens, they’re both animals. Or perhaps you should rethink your omnivorism."
So backyard bunnies sound nice, but how hard is it to actually slaughter and butcher one? "Rabbits are the easiest animals to slaughter," says Pasternak"Mother Nature designed them to die: They are at the bottom of the food chain; you don't have to pluck feathers; it's easy to twist their necks; and skinning them is really fast and easy."
Fryers are butchered between 8 to 12 weeks of age, weighing 4 to 5.5 pounds and should dress out at about 2 to 3 pounds (usually 50 60 percent). Rabbits over 5.5 pounds are considered roasters. The feed conversion per fryer is about 1 pound of meat per 4 pounds of feed.
To kill the rabbit, hold it by its hind legs with your weak hand and with your other hand; put your thumb behind its neck and your fingers on its throat. Quickly snap the neck by pushing straight down. Another method is to hold the hind legs with one hand and strike it sharply with a heavy stick or pipe at the base of the skull. This will kill the rabbit instantly and is completely painless. The broomstick method consists of the rabbit lying on the ground, with the broomstick lying across its neck. Then quickly step on the broomstick and while holding the hind legs, pull up on the body, resulting in dislocating the neck. Some choose to use a firearm and shoot a round through the back of the head, resulting in a quick, painless dispatch. This is not always an option for those living within city limits or where discharging a firearm is not legal or not wise. There are many other tools and systems out there. Find the one that works best for you and your individual circumstances.
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| But once butchered and cooked, does rabbit even taste good? |
But once butchered and cooked, does rabbit even taste good?
According to a growing legion of acclaimed American chefs, the answer is "absolutely." Touted for years by food activists including Michael Pollan, rabbit meat compared with most other meat, such as beef, chicken, lamb and pork is high in protein and low in fat, cholesterol, and sodium. The meat is white, fine-grained, delicately flavored, nutritious, and appetizing and can be prepared in over 300 different ways (USDA 1963).
Just like a pig, each portion of a rabbit has different muscle structures and flavor characteristics when cooked. The hind leg has a more developed flavor because the muscle is used more than the loin, which is leaner and composed of all white meat."
With the uncertain economy and increasing demand for natural diets, more people in all parts of Nigeria, especially Lagos, Abuja, Ogun, and Port Harcourt are raising rabbits for meat. Rabbit meat is becoming a better and safer source of meat Protein, Calcium and phosphorus in many parts of the world with Nigeria not left out.
The meat is also good for you! Yes, rabbits are a healthier meat. The quality of their protein is very good, they are high in good fats, and because they are a pseudo-ruminant they have higher levels of CLAs (Conjugated Linoleic Acid) which are high in the Omega-3 fats that you find in grass fed-beef and lamb."
It's still too soon to tell, but rabbits look like they may soon be ubiquitous. And, maybe that's the best part about going down the rabbit hole: whenever you do, everything old becomes new again, and everything changes places.
Simple rabbit recipe
Ingredient:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon thyme (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1kg rabbit, cut into pieces
The juice of 1 grapefruit
1/2 cup cooking oil (or enough to measure 1/4 inch in bottom of pan)
1 medium onion, chopped
If you do not have your own rabbits, bring home a fryer from a local breeder’s farm of butcher and then cut then cut the entire rabbit in half with a cleaver. Next, season both pieces with salt and pepper and allow resting for 1 hour. Then cut the rabbit into pieces, as you want it.
Combine the flour with the seasonings. Dip each piece of rabbit in the grapefruit juice, and then roll it in the flour mixture until the meat is thoroughly coated. Pour the oil and chopped onion into a deep, heavy pot and heat over a high flame. Place the floured rabbit in the pot and brown each chunk on first one side and then the other. Lower the flame, stir together the remaining grapefruit juice and flour mixture, and add them to the pot. Cover and let everything simmer together until the meat is tender, turning the rabbit pieces from time to time to keep them from sticking.
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