It is Winter… and because we try to breed all the goats at the same time, that means there is little to no milk in the winter. This year, I had a snafu with the buck hopping a fence in June, and we had a few ‘accidents’ kids born In the end of November, and December. So although this means no break from milking, at least we still have fresh milk thought the winter.
The bulk of the goats will be kidding any minute now, and then there will be copious amounts of milk, and cheese to be made.
But In the meantime, I have devised yet another project: Meat Rabbits! In the past I have raised ducks for meat, but they were a (delicious) hassle. They didn’t really like to hatch their own eggs, which led to a whole slew of problems: re- integrating baby ducks into an established flock, keeping the ducklings dry and warm (they are constantly getting soaked to the bone in the waterer, an with no mom to rub oil on them, no protection this often led to hot baths and a hairdryer to get them warm). And though they were so, so very delicious, there was also the issue of plucking, which doesn’t particularly appeal to me… and not much that can be done with the many feathers.
So I have kept a small flock of ducks as layers. and am moving on to a well-thought out meat source.
Rabbit Meat:
-Rabbits breed easily
-Easily housed/segregated, so I control the breeding schedule
-Short gestation 28-31 days
-Quick growth: about 10 weeks for the breed I’ve chosen.
-Easy to care for/ grow
-Incredibly easy to skin & clean the carcass
-Fur as a commodity
So, basically I’m in it for the meat, the fur is a bonus, and extra points for the fact that rabbits are basically the easiest meat to clean (at least as easy as a fish, since most people have probably cleaned a fish, but not necessarily a rabbit).
The breed I am choosing is Rex. They are a large rabbit that isn’t used commercially because they aren’t the biggest of the big. But they have the most incredible fur… it is like chinchilla, or dense, very soft velvet. I am expecting that they should reach ‘fryer’ weight at about 10 weeks, rather than the 8 weeks allotted for commercial rabbit breeds. If you are on the 8 week schedule, this means that a doe (the female) is producing a litter about every month. Time to buy a freezer, I suppose. I’m hoping that the group- 2 does and one buck- will produce a good amount of food for myself (a rabbit a week?), some for my gracious landlords, and a few to sell. Hopefully selling some will offset the feed costs, so that the rabbits we eat aren’t costing anything.
Yum.
Sweet Teats Creamery 
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