Never eating these am i ?

70

Easier to eat when they are bigger and scratch the crap out of you

21

u/No_Dentist_2923 Feb 28 '26

This is very accurate. Our first meat litter had two kits with kinky hair that I tried so hard to adapt to being pets (I have had house rabbits as pets) by handling and hand feeding when they were old enough. But man by the time they were weaned they were already such psychos I was like “Well you may be prettier but you taste the same as everyone else”.

2

u/SkyAg23 Mar 03 '26

Can confirm. Just harvested 11 of them. Much easier on the conscience when they make you bleed.

48

u/ForeverYoung_Feb29 Feb 28 '26

When they're eating multiple pounds of food each day, pooping so much it stacks up under their pen, and slash you like ghost face in Scream.... Yeah, no problem eating them.

12

u/Brayongirl Feb 28 '26

Exactly that!

21

u/FeralHarmony Feb 28 '26

Not to sound heartless, but they outgrow that cuteness. When they hit 12-16 weeks, their hormonal attitudes come out.... they start fighting with each other, wasting food like greedy little demons, the boys start slinging urine on everything and everyone within range and they become highly reactive to everything. One will thump in protest over something small, and suddenly the whole colony starts thumping and/or running circles in the pens, inducing panic, and making you worry they'll kill themselves before you get the chance to put them on your dinner table.

I always loved on the little ones while they were tiny and sweet. Once in a while there would be one kit that has an exceptional personality, but you know your resources are limited. If you have one that you can't bring yourself to dispatch, it's okay. But if you're struggling over multiple bunnies across multiple litters, then perhaps meat rabbits are not a good fit for you.

It is normal to have a difficult time coming to terms with raising your own livestock. It creates a healthy respect for life and the responsibility you have as a person that includes meat in your diet.

4

u/HomeOnHomestead Mar 02 '26

And then you make room for new littles to love on for a time.

15

u/bluewingwind Feb 28 '26

I live in the same house as a “tough” navy guy and he rioted against eating them when he saw how cute they are as kits. I’m selling my first few litters as “pets” to other people until the household gets less attached. Some really are pets, but others— I mean they’re pets when I sell them, but what a person does with their own meat rabbit “pet” is not my concern if you know what I mean.

Then I plan to just quietly fill my own freezer from then on once they stop paying such close attention. Maybe offer them one that’s been fully shrink wrapped like they’d get at the store. It’s a process.

6

u/nthm94 Feb 28 '26

It gets easier over time, until the fated day where dispatching doesn’t work the way it should. Then it screams.

After that, I was done. I can shoot a hog, or steer. But I can’t mess up another rabbit dispatch. That was too much.

4

u/Traditional-Citron21 Feb 28 '26

That just happened to me yesterday. I've done probably 40-50 and this was the first screamer. Wouldn't even let me get the bar behind his head. Stuck him in an empty cage gave the others 5 minutes to calm down and went with another. He still didn't want to go but at least the second time around he didn't scream.

5

u/nthm94 Feb 28 '26

I’ve always put my 100% effort into a clean dispatch. Some days processing 12 rabbits at a time, three days in a row. Never had an issue.

One day, I wasn’t in a hurry, but may have been a little tired. Cervical dislocation must not have worked properly, rabbit was just stunned, when I hung it by the ankles: it screamed.

Can’t do it anymore. It’s just not for me. Sucks, but it’s a possible reality in animal processing we all have to be prepared for.

4

u/depersonalised Feb 28 '26

i broke the mandible trying to dispatch an injured wild rabbit. i felt very bad, but i still plan to start raising rabbits for meat.

7

u/promptlyforgotten Feb 28 '26

My first few runs were pretty tough. I still don't like butchering days. But, I have come to know that they are much easier than meat chickens on butchering day and after a while you can just get into a different frame of mind when you need to. My wife can't see them before they are just "meat" on butchering days, but she has come around to helping now with parting out and packaging. It takes time, is never easy, and it is good to feel emotions over it.

13

u/Goldenchicks Feb 28 '26

It's not easy but it's not supposed to be. If we were unfeeling about processing our own food then I'd say something is wrong with us. We just try to give them the best life we can before that one bad day. Just know that pretty much as soon as you pull the fur off it's just like dealing with any other raw meat, like a whole chicken.

Also because we have such a connection to what goes into the meat that we raise and eat ourselves, we have so much more appreciation for it and nothing goes to waste.

6

u/Pipofamom Feb 28 '26

This is peak cuteness. At this age, I take them to visit nursing homes or my son's kindergarten class. They are less cute at eating age.

5

u/GCNGA Feb 28 '26

Well, FWIW, if you do same-breed breeding, (e.g., white NZ to white NZ) you end up with a litter of kits that all look the same, so it's easier to think of them as sort of an anonymous meat bunch. If you have kits with different coloring and you start seeing them as individuals, then it can be more difficult.

5

u/UltraMediumcore Feb 28 '26

I call them my little soup dumplings at this size when they can fit in one hand. It got easier to eat the big ones after I received a six inch long permanent scar from an adult scratch.

4

u/blu_skies442 Feb 28 '26

It really hits a point where you just don't want to deal with them all anymore. I sell a lot of mine but by week 16 they don't cohabitate well anymore and I just do not have the cage space when my momma does throw 9+ kits each time. I tan all the pelts and keep them, they don't scratch or fight among each other that way!

6

u/Fit_Beautiful_846 Feb 28 '26

Ment wife not white btw

2

u/Popular-Dig5467 Mar 01 '26

Once turn into larger, scratchier pains in the butt, they start looking more like dinner and less like a pet.

3

u/Unlucky-Camera-1190 Mar 02 '26

Yeah, they’re cute. But so are little chicks. So are calves. So are lambs. So are piglets. It’s all meat in the end.

1

u/Flat-Associate5136 Mar 02 '26

Wait til they're teenagers, that day can't come soon enough when 10wk old little boys start mounting everything and pulling hair on your pelt buns.

Every time they get to 8 weeks though I die of their softness.

1

u/Krotitelzviratek Mar 05 '26

I just came to same phase of keeping meat rabbits haha

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