For right now I'd probably do as you're doing and just keep them away or move them away from the garden. The way they're behaving will likely make them easier to harvest for a short period of time after the fall of civilization. Then, grab as many as you can and get them stored for later so that you have that bit of food, fur, etc. available instead of having to take the time and effort to harvest them. Considering how fast rabbits breed, you may also be able to harvest them and put them away in the freezer with the rest still looking for that easy chance at food for them. Plus, the next generations won't know you're grabbing them to eat and keep on coming up to your fence.
Of course, those bunnies are likely as well to know when you decide to start harvesting them for food and completely disappear. Outside of hunting seasons I see more game than I could shake a shotgun at but once seasons open, I couldn't find one to save my life. :?
Another idea, catch a bunch and cage them so that they breed your own food source plus, you can fatten them up in order to avoid rabbit starvation. Just build a big enough cage to keep them from getting too crowded and you have a self perpetuating source for meat. And a serious trade item. No telling what someone will trade you for a bunny or several. 8)

I almost think we could grab these rabbits. They don't run when you are around and you can get within a foot or so from them. There are more of them than us. I have have a heart traps and could use them. I can also just take them off the cat each time while she is still making them squeak. They are not yet hurt at that point. I try to save them as often as I hear them. Sometimes I can't though.

Put some Hav-a Hart traps with leafage or leftovers from your garden plants around your fence at the outside and you may be able to capture plenty of live rabbits to start your own rabbit farm. http://www.havahart.com/store/live-animal-traps/rabbit
I usually hunt mine when I can but I'd raise them if I could. Lots easier to harvest and I don't need the shotgun to get them then. :D

We have 3' high fence and tie downs every two inches all the way around. They made it in one morning under the fence but I sprayed them with the hose and that is why we now have tie downs every inches! They haven't made it in since the first week. Most of our neighbors have electric fences!! I guess they were seriously bunny-burned before. I think we are too active outside for them to have much time to get in. So far...so good!

You must have a very stout fence around your garden. I have always had a problem with the cottontail type rabbits digging under my fence and devouring my young veggi plants. They can wipe out the garden in just one night. Seven of them looking in through the fence is an omen of bad things to come.
What I finally did was cut 2' wide strips of galvanized metal lath and tie wired them in a figure L position so they could not dig through or under the fence. I had to use pieces of rebar to stake them down to the ground. Some fox or coyote would help in your area, evidently there aren't any there.

I really don't know my rabbits and may have to put some time on the computer into it. The rabbits that run our neighborhood are brown and I guess you would say a cotton tail. They grow pretty big. I woke early yesterday morning and headed out to water the garden. It wasn't quite light yet and there were 7 rabbits lined up at the fence staring into it. Since I was walking up from a direction where they could clearly see me, they did not run until they started getting splashed with water. There are usually half a dozen+ in our yard and everyone else's at any point of the day.

What kind do you have running around the neighborhood? If they are of the cottontail variety they might be good to eat. Those wild black tailed rabbits that are indiginous to the western states do not taste as good as the cottontails and the meat is TOUGH. Gives your jaw a workout and I would eat them only when we were starving. They are actually a hare, not a rabbit, whatever the biological difference may be. SS5R gave me a wild cottontail rabbit about 1983 and she produced many offspring and several tons of fertilizer for the garden. That one lived 12 years in a cage and on a pellet type diet. If you could capture a pair of the rabbits running wild in your neighborhood you could begin a small rabbitry for use as a fertilizer factory. Goat and rabbit manure contain the most nitrogen of any of the animal manures and will work wonders in the garden.

I have never seen rabbit meat in a store! So they raise rabbits like chickens? Yuck! I cannot stomach eggs from one of those chicken farms. The yolk is yellow instead of orange and they leave an odd after taste in my mouth that even brushing doesn't get rid of.

So wild rabbit is tougher but tastes better. We may have to beat the cat to the feast one time and try it. May let her do the deed and she can still have the head and heart, which seems to be all that she eats of them. Since she has cleaned the neighborhood of chipmunks and squirrels, the rabbits have become her daily duty. I am truly tired of cleaning them up every morning and there are so many that she will never run out of them.

Wild rabbits, especially black tailed jack rabbits, are tougher than their domesticated cousins. I have shot several black tails that made the mistake of digging under the garden fence to eat those tasty tidbits. They ended up in a stew pot . The rabbit meat you buy at the store comes from critters who sit in a cage 24 seven and eat a diet of high protein alfalfa pellets and don't get a whole lot of exercise. Their meat tastes sweeter and is not so chewy as the big black tails. I value their droppings more than the meat, to be used as nitrogen fertilizer.

Our community is a haven for rabbits. Although our cat collects the mid sized rabbits daily to use as squeak toys before eating them, we are inundated with bunnies. Each time I visit the garden, I have to chuckle at the number of rabbits surrounding the fence staring at all those goodies inside and early mornings I sit on the porch watching 6 to 12 of them racing each other up and down our street. My question is...do wild rabbits taste the same as domestic rabbits? I should know that answer since I ate a lot of rabbit with my grandparents but I do not remember. When we GOOD, should we grab up a hand full of our local pet population?

[quote="cowboy38229"]
... would not close it in like a chicken coup ... something temporary on the north and west side in winter to block some of the wind off ... summer i'd want it all open... never had a rabbit to freeze to death but i've lost some to heat stroke.
[/quote]

We built a simple chicken coop to keep the meat birds in last year. The construction was surprisingly simple and made good use of lumber from a salvage job.
[img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/chickencoop.jpg[/img]

We have hardware cloth in the windows of the chicken house
[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/8-roofonandhardwareclothinwindows.jpg[/img]
and provide additional protection from the elements with "storm windows" we build from scrap wood.
[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/A-stormwindowsandbattensgoingon1.jpg[/img]
The windows are typically used in the winter to close off the structure from wind and inclement weather. Plenty of ventilation through the eaves. The windows swing up, attached at the top with hinges or simple wire loops. A wire on the traveling edge of the window is hooked on a screw above and holds it open during nice weather to add ventilation and provide extra overhang for protection from spring showers. This has been about the cheapest solution I have come up with. Even the chicken house needs all the air it can get during the summer.

With the saw mill we have an abundance of stickers - 1x1 sticks cut from scrap and used to provide air space in the pile where lumber is dried. This home sawn lumber is tough as iron. Also, scrap battons, used from building board and batton walls (2x1) are real handy. We use this small scrap to build a frame and staple plastic over it to keep blowing rains from coming in the windows.

The plan is to build a setup similar to the chicken coop used for the meat birds. The poultry wire will provides some protection from predators - in addition to the cages/hutches - and keep the chickens out. Storm windows will provide protection for cold wind and driving rain, while permitting all four sides to be opened.

I appreciate the advice about cold and heat stroke. I suspected as much, but it is good to hear from someone with experience. We are also debating a tarp arrangement to provide a sun break on the really hot days - have to figure something out that will provide shade without cutting down air circulation. My wife suggested large PVC pipe as a core, attached to the tarp that could be used to roll it up. It does get quite hot in Tennessee during the summer.

Regards,
Pat

Pat im not sure of your intentions with the rabbitary but if i were you i would not close it in like a chicken coup . Maybe something temporary on the north and west side in winter to block some of the wind off ,but in summer i'd want it all open.I've never had a rabbit to freeze to death but i've lost some to heat stroke.

1/4
A pretty good day today even if the weather was gloomy. The head of steam gathered the last few days seems to be staying with us. The weatherman predicted a 50% chance of rain, but it held off until evening. Occasional drizzles and mists, but nothing long or heavy. Three jobs got prepped today – the roof over the cover materials for the compost bin, the area around the rabbitry, and the roof for the shed. The roof for the cover materials bin still had the 2x4 supports attached. They were removed and rubbish that had collected around the posts – broken boards and wood scrap from mounting the roof frame – was collected. It has been a few months since the compost bins could be walked around without stepping over supports and other boards. The area around the future rabbitry was cleared out. It is located under a roofed in area in front of the old trailer. Much of the roof is falling down, but some of it could support itself free standing. The damaged parts of the roof will need to be cut away. Some of the area to be cut away was an old pen used to store rolls of fencing. The fencing was moved and two good rolls of weld wire were cut away and salvaged from that area. Landscape timbers were laid out along the posts, describing an outline for the walls of the rabbitry, allowing measurements to be taken and ground to be dug to make the foundation level. The last owners had a dog that was a wolf-cross penned in this area. The dog would dig itself a den below the ground and they would fill it in with old firewood to discourage digging. There must be half a cord of wood buried out there. The old wood is being fished out of the ground, leaving a depression. Cart loads of gravel will need to be moved from the creek bed to fill the ground back in after the wood has been completely removed. The last chore was getting ready for the roof on the shed. A line with a level that clips onto the line is being used to get the highest mark. I have a few ideas about the roof and will play around with the designs after we have determined where the highest point will be. We are rethinking the floor joists too. The original design was going to use 2x6 for joists, but we will go with 2x8 for additional strength.

No predators today, we had the same number of poultry this evening as we did this morning.

1/7
Rain the last two days. Last night a fellow at a meeting told me that the woman I was planning on buying rabbits from wanted out and was selling all her stock. She has 23 rabbits and all sorts of equipment and is selling it at a bargain price. Karen and I went down to see her today and talk about it. I had gone down there with the idea of just buying two does and two bucks. The cages/hutches were an excellent set of professional racks with pans to collect droppings and urine. They did not look pretty because they had been in use. She is an elderly gal and said her arthritis was giving her problems with the slaughter and skinning. We had struck a deal for four rabbits, five hutches and associated gear. As we were driving home, Karen asked me if I wanted to get the whole shebang. I didn’t think that was a good idea at first, but as we drove I got to thinking on the matter. Many of the rabbits were ready for slaughter, meaning they could begin generating income immediately and recoup part of the cost of purchase. They have feeders, water bottles and all the associated gear – she’s even throwing in the feed – so there will be little additional cost there. When we got home I resumed working on the rabbit shed/hootch. It was late – 2 or 3 PM, but by the time it got too dark to work I had framed in the corners of the posts and I’m ready to begin putting on sides tomorrow. The work went quickly and is coming together as I imagined it would work. We will need some poultry wire to cover the windows, and hinges for a storm window system similar to that used in the chicken house, but it should be a simple enough structure and other than hinges and wire we should have enough salvage materials on hand to make it. I had purchased some 10 inch nails for the roof frame over the compost cover material bin. We didn’t need the nails because carriage bolts from the salvage job worked. The 10 inch nails came in handy for attaching nailers to the cedar posts for the rabbit hootch. Those things are the very devil to drive! Smaller cousins of the railroad spike, I had a heck of a time driving them in with a standard hammer. Two swings showed me how silly hat idea was. I couldn’t find the framing hammer (that idiot that used it last time didn’t put it away). I finally wound up driving the nails with the maul. After the nailers were fixed to the posts, they were anchored to each other with 3 inch screws. They are not perfectly square, but they close the corners off from access by rodents and provide ample surface for affixing the horizontal wall boards.

1/8
The sky has cleared and temperatures are inclined to rise for the next day or two. Yesterday was cool and breezy, but the sun came out and warmed things up decently by late afternoon. Yesterday’s work went up to about 5 PM, about as long as daylight will permit this time of year.

This morning we got bread started - this is going to be a baking day too. When baking the last batch we ran out of whole wheat flour. I had forgotten how nicely white flour rises. Whole wheat is heavier and does not get the nice rise that makes good sandwich bread. Fortunately, it does not demand attention every minute of the process, so it can rise and wait while we attend to other matters.

1/9
Yesterday I started a batch of bread. We got busy outside working on the rabbit shed and I didn’t get back to it until after dinner. The dough was in a bucket for the first rise, so no worry there. I broke it our and made loaves, but it took forever to rise in the loaf pan. I was up until 11:30 last night before the loaves were out on the cooling rack. That threw me off schedule for this morning – Karen finally woke me up around 6:45.

This was planned to be a busy day. Tony and Kay came over with his truck and 12 foot trailer. We went over to the rabbit lady’s house about 9 AM and started loading the rabbits on the trailer. We managed to get all the gear and animals loaded on and got them home around 11:30 or so. [img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/trailer_o_rabbits.jpg[/img]
After a small break, we set about unloading the rabbits and gear into the shed – still under construction.
[img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/r003_rabbits_loaded.jpg[/img]

After unloading we had lunch – fresh chicken and noodles put on by Karen before we left this morning. It was an excellent lunch and served as the big meal for the day. Seemed like we had been working all day up to that point, and we were all feeling pretty sluggish. Tony and Kay left, and about 2:30 I started thinking about what needed to be done to get ready for the night. A board had been removed from the front of the rabbit shed to make it easier to unload the trailer and load into the shed. That board needed to go back up, but it also provided an opportunity to put in an additional door. Since the time we first started working on the shed, Karen has been asking “Why on earth did you put a door on the back side?” I thought my reasoning was good – that was the high side of the sloping roof. When Tony came over, the first thing out of his mouth was “Why on earth did you put a door on the back side?” Tony is no slouch about construction, and sometimes I forget what a smart woman I married, so I caved to pressure and put a door on the front. Actually, don’t tell Karen, but the only reason I put the door on the back, excluding my dandy EXCUSE, was that I had three posts on that side, making t easier to frame a door without having to dig a post hole and bury another post. Seeing the inevitable, I put in two more posts, replacing the front board in two pieces, rather than the single board.

I also learned how to not handle rabbits. I had caught one to transfer it to a cage – one of the animals ready for slaughter, and was holding it by the hind legs. It was frightened and really flailing around. It broke a hind leg at the ankle. The poor thing was in pain, so this provided the rabbit lady with the opportunity to go through rabbit slaughter for me. I have read the procedure and it doesn’t look too difficult, what I was looking for were any tricks she may have picked up over the years to make the task quicker and simpler. I don’t know that I would use exactly the same method, but it did provide perspective – useful when rereading the procedure. Compared to chickens, dispatching a rabbit is brutal, so it is important to do it as quickly and humanely as possible.

I got the posts put in and reattached the front board. Each addition makes the structure stronger, important for the day when the surrounding roof and trailer are torn down. Because we have not completed the walls, the rabbits are exposed to the weather even though they are under cover from rain. We are expecting rain and some nighttime temperatures well below freezing in the next few days, so we hung cheap tarps on the side and attached them with nails through the grommets. They are cheap tarps and I don’t expect them to survive long, but if they can make it three weeks they will have served their purpose.
[img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/r004_temp_walls.jpg[/img]

After we got the tarps up, I checked inside to ensure all cages were locked – the rabbits had had quite a rough day with the transporting and moving around. In the brief time that the tarps had been in place the interior had begun to smell strongly of urine, convincing me of the wisdom of making an open type structure with plenty of functional windows. It was also quite obvious that the rabbits were enjoying the sunshine and fresh air – many of them basking in the sun like house cats. All total, we received 24 rabbits (including the one slaughtered) and 18 cages. 12 of the cages are in a rack – 4 racks, each 3 cages high. The remaining 6 cages are loose, with stands to hold 4 of the cages up off the ground. At least 3 of these loose cages are over-sized, making them quite useful for holding does with young litters. The rabbit lady also threw in a lot of extras – she didn’t need it any more. Feed, a 50 gallon barrel with lid for holding feed, a number of buckets with lids for feed, a gutting knife, boning shears, and at least 6 nesting boxes. We are well-heeled for raising rabbits and should only need to purchase feed in the near future. Any other supplies we will need can be fabricated from materials readily at hand. The slaughtered rabbit was given to Tony and Kay, with our thanks for all their help. It is wonderful to have knowledgeable friends and neighbors that we can swap work with and learn from. If not for these considerations, we would still enjoy their company. I can always count on Tony when I need a hand, and I can always count on learning something when he needs a hand – or whenever we get together, for that matter.

Regards,
Pat

Any time I've heard a discussion about rabbits as a food source this subject has come up,not saying it's not a good topic ,but just remember to use rabbit as a supplement to your diet and not an all you can eat everyday meal . Myself I don't have that problem because when it comes time to do the deed all i hear is how can you kill the cute cudly little bunny. So I now have a beagle. I guess the little brown wild rabbits aren't as cute as one someone has to feed every day . I still have a few rabbits and cages and if shtf I'm sure they won't be nearly as cute or cudly.

I heard that term a long time ago but could not pinpoint it or the reasoning behind it. Found the following in Wikipedia (click on the link to read all the research and sub-links to other sources - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation):

Rabbit starvation is the form of acute malnutrition caused by excess consumption of any lean meat (e.g. rabbit) coupled with a lack of other sources of nutrients usually in combination with other stressors, such as severe cold or dry environment. Symptoms include diarrhea, headache, lassitude, a vague discomfort and hunger that can only be satisfied by consumption of fat or carbohydrates.

Possible mechanisms:

* Lack of fats in the meat.
* Because of the low fat, essential fatty acids are deficient (linolenic and arachidonic acids - omega 3 and omega 6 unsaturated)
* Lean meat, being mostly protein, must be broken down into amino acids and then converted into glucose (via gluconeogenesis) to be used as an energy source. Although this process takes time, it can be done quickly enough to meet most of the energy requirements of an active person. However, sufficient calories cannot be consumed to meet the added requirements to generate body heat in a cold climate. After the body's energy reserves (fat) are depleted, the energy requirements to sustain basic life processes are not met.
* The ammonia released during the process of converting amino acids into glucose cannot be cleared by conversion to urea unless enough water is consumed to void it. The buildup of ammonia or urea is poisonous.
* Rabbit meat is NOT limiting in any essential amino acids.

Observations:

Vilhjalmur Stefansson wrote as follows:

"The groups that depend on the blubber animals are the most fortunate in the hunting way of life, for they never suffer from fat-hunger. This trouble is worst, so far as North America is concerned, among those forest Indians who depend at times on rabbits, the leanest animal in the North, and who develop the extreme fat-hunger known as rabbit-starvation. Rabbit eaters, if they have no fat from another source--beaver, moose, fish--will develop diarrhoea in about a week, with headache, lassitude and vague discomfort. If there are enough rabbits, the people eat till their stomachs are distended; but no matter how much they eat they feel unsatisfied. Some think a man will die sooner if he eats continually of fat-free meat than if he eats nothing, but this is a belief on which sufficient evidence for a decision has not been gathered in the North. Deaths from rabbit-starvation, or from the eating of other skinny meat, are rare; for everyone understands the principle, and any possible preventive steps are naturally taken."

In the introduction to the book Abandoned: the story of the Greely Arctic Expedition 1881-1884, which recounts the harrowing experiences of the twenty-five Expedition members, of whom nineteen died, Stefansson refers to “rabbit starvation” which is now to me the key to the Greely problem,” which was “why only six came back..” He concludes that one of the reasons for the many deaths was cannibalism of the lean flesh of members who had already died. Stefansson likens this to rabbit starvation, which he explains somewhat as in the above quoted observation.

Charles Darwin, in The Voyage of the Beagle, wrote:

"We were here able to buy some biscuit. I had now been several days without tasting any thing besides meat: I did not at all dislike this new regimen; but I felt as if it would only have agreed with me with hard exercise. I have heard that patients in England, when desired to confine themselves exclusively to an animal diet, even with the hope of life before their eyes, have hardly been able to endure it. Yet the Gaucho in the Pampas, for months together, touches nothing but beef. But they eat, I observe, a very large proportion of fat, which is of a less animalized nature; and they particularly dislike dry meat, such as that of the Agouti. Dr. Richardson, also, has remarked, “that when people have fed for a long time solely upon lean animal food, the desire for fat becomes so insatiable, that they can consume a large quantity of unmixed and even oily fat without nausea:” this appears to me a curious physiological fact. It is, perhaps, from their meat regimen that the Gauchos, like other carnivorous animals, can abstain long from food. I was told that at Tandeel, some troops voluntarily pursued a party of Indians for three days, without eating or drinking."

Have you ever come across the term "RABBIT STARVATION"? While taking a jungle survival training course at Camp Pendelton we were told that rabbit meat by itself is not enough to survive on due to its low fat content. Survivors of airplane crashes in Alaska were able to snare and trap rabbits and after living on them for several weeks they were losing weight and getting weaker by the minute. This was due in part to a mono diet of rabbit meat which is high in protien but contains very little fat, not enough fat to keep a human body functioning properly. Some survivors, when rescued, had rickets from not getting enough nutrients into their bodies. Thus the term rabbit starvation.
I have raised rabbits for over 40 years and without their manure my garden could not produce one fifth of what it does. Manure tea works great, you can watch the plants lift their leaves up towards the sun after an application of home brewed manure tea. :)

I just butchered 22 of mine yesterday. There is always meat in the freezer and canned in the pantry. I can say that rabbits have been one of the best investments I have made and couldn't be happier with the outcome so far.

Have you ate any tame rabbit? Very tasty. We like it battered & fried in a cast iron skillet. Reminds me of how chicken tasted when I was a boy many, many years ago. It has some real flavor not the bland taste of supermarket food. Best of luck on your rabbit project. Bama.

We have plans to add rabbits to our holdings. I ran up against a book titled "Raising Rabbits Successfully" by Bob Bennet - that got me interested. I was surprised to find he wrote the Storey's book on rabbits. For those of you not familiar with Storey's, they are readily available and immensely accessible books on livestock and other aspects of self-reliance.

At any rate, we are constructing quarters and acquiring materials for building the hutches. For those of you on small holdings that consider raising your own livestock/meat out of the question, consider rabbits. The thought of raising a caged animal strictly for meat had no appeal for me, and I had always thought of rabbits as large rodents. I'm a believer now. They can be raised in a small amount of space, make no noise, are prodigious producers of quality meat, easily handled with minor facilities, and aside from meat they produce hide and manure for the garden. Rabbit manure is slow release nitrogen and can be applied directly to the garden without composting - it will not burn your plants. I would be the last to recommend someone start a public business, getting entangled in health regulations and government oversight, but rabbit meat can not only provide you and your family with food, it may also serve for barter if conditions deteriorate.

As we progress in this area, I will post more information.

Regards,
Pat