I love reading about your farm adventures! I'd love to be self-sustainable. I was raised on a farm and there are honestly times I see critters and my mouth waters. Life steered me off the farm but I dream of going back some lucky day...
I loved having chickens - they are hilarious - and goats are good value too. I'm curious as to why you chose bunnies for meat and not something a little larger? Bunnies are yummy and farm-raised meat is beyond compare but goats are good for milk as well as meat and honestly, they are yummy. Nothing beats beef (our family would raise a potty calf or keep a cow for calves and send them away to be butchered and processed. We'd end up with about a year's worth of meat depending on how it was cut and a LOT of dog-bones! People around here still do it, even in suburbia - there are plenty of places to keep cows around here!) but they are a large-scale investment so I can see why starting small is going to be easier. Goats are a lot less lovable too, by the time they're big enough to eat, no one is thinking about how cute the damn things are! I have never considered them - prefer chickens - but I always imagined skipping from chickens to goats to get red meat. Bunnies in Australia are bred for their pelts - Akubra hats are 100% bunny-pelt - and they are actually banned in some states so perhaps its part cultural, we do eat them and the local butcher supplies them but its more of a speciality - like crocodile or camel.
My grandmother was a big fan of quail. I mean HUGE. She was like a fox - she went through them by the dozens. I must admit, it gets a bit intensive when you have to take down the best part of a flock just for a meal but she was onto something, they sure are tasty little birds!
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-03-09 11:24 am (UTC)I loved having chickens - they are hilarious - and goats are good value too. I'm curious as to why you chose bunnies for meat and not something a little larger? Bunnies are yummy and farm-raised meat is beyond compare but goats are good for milk as well as meat and honestly, they are yummy. Nothing beats beef (our family would raise a potty calf or keep a cow for calves and send them away to be butchered and processed. We'd end up with about a year's worth of meat depending on how it was cut and a LOT of dog-bones! People around here still do it, even in suburbia - there are plenty of places to keep cows around here!) but they are a large-scale investment so I can see why starting small is going to be easier. Goats are a lot less lovable too, by the time they're big enough to eat, no one is thinking about how cute the damn things are! I have never considered them - prefer chickens - but I always imagined skipping from chickens to goats to get red meat. Bunnies in Australia are bred for their pelts - Akubra hats are 100% bunny-pelt - and they are actually banned in some states so perhaps its part cultural, we do eat them and the local butcher supplies them but its more of a speciality - like crocodile or camel.
My grandmother was a big fan of quail. I mean HUGE. She was like a fox - she went through them by the dozens. I must admit, it gets a bit intensive when you have to take down the best part of a flock just for a meal but she was onto something, they sure are tasty little birds!