Sallygarden Smallholding - The Forum For Sustainable Living

Hi
We have recently decided not to do chickens for the table anymore due to the huge amount of time taken to rear and prepare for the table in comparison to the small amount of meat in return.
We did ducks this year for the first time, Aylesbury's, we killed them at 4 months and the meat was superb and lots of it. We fed 6 people a dinner, then 6 people enough meat off it again for a stir fry the next days lunch, and then of course soup for 6 folk the following day. Not bad for 1 bird. We will definitely do ducks again. We have our own breeding pair and a bantom broody hatched 8 eggs. It does take quite a while to pluck a duck though with all that down.
Rabbits are easy enough. You do need 4 runs though which takes up quite a bit of space. We have one buck and 2 breeding does, 1 New Zealand White and 2 Californians. The hutches need moving every day onto fresh grass. Trying to clean out all the hutches every day in an urban setting would b quite a challenge. Remember you'll end up with 40 or 50 kits by the end of the summer, more if you don't manage the whereabouts of the buck!
Its not possible to buy organic rabbit feed as there is only pet grade feed in Ireland and we haven't had any luck importing it from UK either via our org feed supplier. The feed has to be monitored well, get the ratio of grain/pellets to fresh food and hay right or they get upset tummies which can be fatal. Rabbits are not very robust and can die v quickly if a virus hits.
The rabbits breed April to Sept if kept outside, over winter we keep the 3 adults together, in spring they are separated - buck in one house with a guinea pig, 2 does together until they start breeding. In spring We leave the buck in with the does until the first litter arrives. He is fine with the kits, I just move him out to give the does a month off breeding.
Then over the summer we divide the kits between the cages when old enough.
At 4 months we kill them. Theres no plucking, just skin them which is far quicker. The meat is nice but theres not a huge amount, enough on one rabbit to feed 4 for dinner, then a soup the following day.
For us pigs are the easiest and best return in meat, plus we only need to keep them once a year or less for 4 months.
Hope that helps,
Regards, Rebecca

Thats interesting. We must not have fatten up the duck enough before finishing them as there was only enough for one person out of them. I have totally turned against poulty for meat now. Like you said , poor return of meat for time, money and effort. We are rearing two weaners , so im excited to see the return on that. to me it makes more sense to finish a large animal and fill the freezer than to have just enough for the evenings dinner. And the duck feathers/down are still floating around the garden, my house and coming out in the laundry! Think it would have been easier to have grown a few more spuds

I hear ye! We are eating less and less meat, more and more veg, as we experience the effort and expense in terms of producing meat compared to veg. It also makes me ever more sceptical at the production of 'cheap' meat - how on earth do they do it for such a small selling cost - what must the conditions be like - what crap must they feed them? Chickens and pigs particularly. If I'm going to buy meat then beef or lamb are the best options for me, animals that have lived in a field and seen the sun! I do love vegetarian food and meat is becoming more of a treat than a mainstay these days. I think tho that thats a more natural and healthy balanced diet, when you have to produce it yourself, time and effort channels you naturally towards healthier foods (less meat more pulses n veg), foods that nature intended us to eat more of.

Totally agree although i am guilty for buying a 1.8kg stuffed chicken in tescos today. And i was stunned that they can produce it for that as it costs us €3.50 for a 2 wk broiler. But it does give you more respect, that chicken will do 3 days. Roast, then chicken curry , then soup and then to the dogs. I think the attitude of meat comes from and i hear it from my parents, ' that we never wanted for anything as we could put meat on the table 7 days a week'. A measurement of wealth and now people consume 3 portions a day easily, considering a adult portion is a small cut of meat. Hence i guess all the current ailments of bowel & heart diseases.

My first posting but I had to reply to this one! We've been breeding meat rabbits for over a year now and are actually desperately trying to cut down to 10 does because we found keeping them quite addictive! Not just the challenge to produce the best ratio of feed to meat but the colour variations are interesting too. We breed New Zealand Blacks and Blues; Californians; French Lops (white, chestnut agouti, opal - brilliant temperament compared to all the others and originally bred as a meat rabbit); Vienna Blues and mutt French farm rabbits.

To produce meat cheaper than it is to buy in the supermarket you need to produce about 40 kits per year per doe. To get the most use out of a cage if you have limited space you should use a 42 day breedback schedule. We have plenty of cages and all of our does have double cages and we find an 11 day breedback schedule to be most reliable and step back to a 21 day breedback when we find we have a full freezer (and then 42 if it's still full!). This isn't a given but depends on how the doe looks. Rabbits naturally breed immediately after kindling and this is when they are most fertile. To only breed them twice a year is a waste and will probably result in difficulties in breeding.

As far as the kids go, you use the same principle you do with all animals - breeders get names (with a warning that if they don't perform they may have to be culled) and kits don't, unless it's 'breakfast, dinner, burger' etc!

Rabbit can be used in any recipe which uses chicken - just cook with a bit more moisture and on a lower heat for a bit longer. Our kids love it and we all actually find shop bought chicken a bit greasy now. Having said that - we're now considering trying raising meat chickens (we already have layers) but the remarks on this thread are a bit offputting!

Just realised I didn't answer the questions!

cost - using pelleted feed we worked out about €3.5 per rabbit (costs about €12 in the shops)

-prep for table - not sure exactly what the question is but hubby skins and paunches a rabbit in 20 minutes, soaks them in ice water for half an hour and then dries them and bags them and they go in the fridge for 3 days before either being eaten or going in the freezer. We either cook a whole rabbit or joint a couple into back legs and backs and put the fronts in the pot to make stew.

-meat quality/quantity - less bone than chicken, about 1.2-1.5kg dressed weight per rabbit, similar to chicken but less greasy. Can use any chicken recipe.