I wanted my next blog post to compare the cost of raising a flock of chickens for eggs, compost and food with raising rabbits for compost and food. Somewhere along the way I got side tracked with a September 28 issue of New Yorker article on keeping chickens. Apparently there is a huge upsurge in urban chicken keeping…hmmm.

The author, Susan Orlean, writes that others in the business of chickens think the next urge will be in ducks and goats. I think there may be more exploration of poultry before the jump to goats. I’ve tried turkeys and ducks because it was an easy way to still use the same equipment and concepts as chicken keeping to raise them. For me the step into the mammalian world will be with rabbits. They are less maintenance have have fewer needs than goats. Dairy goats are a big commitment that require careful time managemen; bigger shelter and like to be in a herd- so space for two to three goats. With the construction around the house this is not an option right now but I hope will be in the near future. Though I don’t think cows will ever make it as an urban livestock, the Guinea Hog may.

One really cool resource in the article was website called IKEA Hacker, where IKEA furniture is recycled into new practical creations, including a chicken coop.

The  New Yorker article is not online but a video of the author with her chickens is:

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Butchery classes are popping up around the Bay Area with greater frequency, most are chicken focused. By now, I have my poultry down. However I feel like there is a jump from avian to mammalian slaughter. I had been considering rabbits for a while but was not sure how much I like rabbit meat. However, after returning from Spain where I enjoyed several varieties of rabbit, I cooked my own and decided YES. Yes, I do like rabbit that much. After doing the rabbit math for cost (they can be costly when purchased at the butchers), I also decided raising your own is the way to go.

It just so happened that Novella had organized a rabbit class at her West Oakland farm. The class was led by Tamara Wilder, of the Paleotechnics, with Chef Samin doing the butchery part (Dude, Tamara is crazy, cool but oh sh*t!). The price was steep but I was still glad to have acquired as much information as I had. I feel very confident now. In the future I think I may seek out other class options for price sake but it all depends on what is being offered.

The class started off with wild woman Tamara introducing herself and describing her path in self sufficiency and meat eating. I was definitely intrigued by her road kill survival. In listening to the others in the class it seemed I was surrounded by a wealth of culinary knowledge and people that had taken the “doing it yourself” thing several stages deep. Basically my kind of people.

Tamara discussed what rabbit portion of the day would entail (chickens were also on the agenda): methods of dispatch, skinning, eviscerating, butchery and saving the hide. Then we’d be let loose to take our own bunnies into our respective corners of the garden to do as instructed. She demonstrated the neck break by hand method and Novella showed us the dowel method. I am often asked if I break the necks of my poultry and I do not. I thought, since I had someone right there with me, I would personally attempt this by hand with my rabbit..mistake. I was not strong and sure enough, maybe my arms are not long enough. Whatever it is, I shall not attempt that again if I can help it.

The dowel method appears to be a surer shot. Place rabbit on ground. Quickly pin it down with a dowel (1 inch ~1.5 inch) right at the base of the skull. Place your feet on each end of the dowel straddling the rabbit. Reach down for the back legs and pull them up. This ensures a fast clean break.

The skinning is a bit tricky and will take practice but basically:

You take rope and slip knot it on a suspended bar, leaving to ends to make hitch knots for the feet. Once the neck has been broken, you immediately bleed by cutting the jugular.

You then skin starting with an incision made around the anus and up the legs being very careful to hold the skin away from the meat so you don’t cut into the meat. Rabbit skin is loose so this is not so hard to do.

Tamara then showed how you remove the tail using sticks to pinch it and pull.

You can then begin to rolling the skin right off. This process is called removing the “pajamas.” Once the skin approached the front paws you can either painstakingly cut the skin away from the paws, cut them off to stay attached to the full skin, or cut them off. The same goes for the skin on the face. As a novice and with a cooling carcass, I did not attempt this.

Once everyone was ready we claimed our space on tables for the evisceration. We found that many of our rabbits had full bladder that released while they were laying down. Some prefer to eviscerate while the rabbit is still hanging, this may help avoid contamination.

Removing the anus and lower rectum was tricky. Novella demonstrated how she breaks the pelvis and cut along the inner thigh to see better how to release the intestine from the skin. Once that was and the diaphragm were cut loose, everything came out in one scoop. Our rabbits were young (9 weeks) so the kidneys also came out. Normally you’d process at closer to 12 weeks and the kidneys remain attached to the back.

Once that was done Samin demonstrated the primary cuts: back and front legs, loins off saddle, belly:

We discussed preparation. Another chef in the crowd had an delicious suggestion for making an Italian style crude pate with the heart, liver and kidneys (I did this when I got home and it was great). The significant things to know are that the meat needs to rest for 2 days before preparing or it will be rubbery. A suggestion was made that we brine for day one and, if interested in frying, soak parts in buttermilk overnight on day two or three. A fuller discussion on rabbit cookery will have to wait for a later post.

We then moved onto skins. We used these posts rigged up using “primitive methods” demonstrated. I once fleshed a goat skin without a post and metal scrapper thing. I just laid the skin on a table and used ash to grip and manually pulled the flesh off. Perhaps that is even more primitive method, before the Bronze age of expensive cutlery. However you do it, fleshing is a tedious process. Afterwards, we placed the fleshed skins on willow frames Tamara showed us how to make. Keys: soak willow branches in water for several hours and lightly hammer 4-5 inch area that will bend to prevent splitting.

At this point, the class (the first run for Tamara) had taken a few hours longer than anticipated and I was exhausted. When it started raining, I was concerned about biking home so I did not linger for the chicken demonstration but I did stay long enough to witness the makeshift (the theme for the day) plucking table. Funny.

All in all, the class was worth while. There were a few place I may have panicked had a done my usual and just tried it by myself in my backyard. Most notably, is I had a failed neck break I would have been an inconsolable mess. I have to admit, I am not over seeing rabbit as suuuuper cute. The holding was hard but I guess my mind has worked it out because as soon as the rabbit was is in position, the feeling went from “cute warm fuzzy” to solemn, focused and ensuring things happen fast.

Now that I am home and had my crude pate for dinner, the rabbit brining and my skin drying, I am pretty excited to start keeping them.

The below discussion of the cost of raising rabbits for food was accessed from a homesteading forum. I have modified it to prices in the Bay Area.

These calculations represent an ‘average’ growout period:

Rabbits born 4/10/06
Rabbits butchered 6/28/06
Age at butcher day 11 weeks
Average weight at butcher day 5 pounds (Three rabbits picked at random and weighed in a 5 gallon bucket on a dairy scale to determine average weight)

Feeding regime
Left on mother for first 4 weeks
Supplemented with grass hay throughout life
Commercial 16% rabbit pellets (mostly alfalfa)
Once weaned at 4 weeks, rabbits moved to separate cages, 4 per cage.

Fed via large bin feeders, bins filled every third day at first, then progressing to everyday as rabbits grow out, averaging a fill rate of every other day, bins hold 2.5 pounds of pellets; therefore during the 7 weeks of pellet feeding, each cage gets 61 pounds of feed over the 49 day feeding period from weaning to butchering.

For 8 rabbits in two cages, that’s approximately 132 pounds of feed total or 16.5 pounds per rabbit.
One 50 lb. Bag of rabbit pellets is $13, or approximately $0.26 per pound ($4.29/rabbit). Alfalfa hay is ~$8/bale. Bales are about 75 lbs/bale, so $0.11/lb. Rabbits eat about 4 oz daily. Hay would run about 12.25 per rabbit to butcher weight.

This equates to right at $1.35 + $4.29 = $5.64 per rabbit to feed them to butcher weight.

Including the feed given to the mother during the first 4 weeks of life:

Mother with 8 kits in nestbox….feeders filled every third day…..grass hay supplemented. Ten fills per 30 days time equals 25 pounds of pellet feed to mother and 8 kits, which is ($0.26 x 25lbs) $6.50 for those first four weeks.For the 9 rabbits or approximately $0.72 per rabbit. Since she did not calculate the hay fed, we can round up to $0.80.

Therefore, adding up feed costs….
First four weeks…$0.80
Second seven weeks $5.64
Total $6.44 per rabbit to get them to 5 pounds butcher weight.

Butchering and processing information (Picked one rabbit at random of the 8 butchered) for weights
Head, fur, and feet…15 oz [removed for other use]
Guts and organs…..1lb 3 oz [removed for other use]
Final Freezer weight……2 lb 12 oz [for eating]

For human consumption, that equates to $2.34 per pound for the rabbit meat. If I were to add in the liver, heart and other edible organs that were placed in the dog food category, the price would be lower.

This analysis is just a quick assessment a down and dirty calculation on meat costs. There are about a million ways to lower the cost. Most I sometimes do and should do more often. It all just depends on what’s growing and what’s available. Off the top of my head..

I could feed more garden refuse and less commercial pellets
I could feed more grass hay and less commercial pellets
I could raise sunflowers every year and get faster growth rates
I could do more selective breeding to keep and maintain ONLY those
rabbits that grow the largest kits.
I could reduce the number of rabbits per cage to two.
I could leave the kits with the mother another 4-7 days longer

For $2.34/lb, getting a product that is homegrown without steroids or antibiotics. This compares to an average market price of $7.99/lb.

You can get three meals per rabbit or more, depending on what you are making.

This calculation does not include the calculation for water it also does not count the value of furs, feet, heat and offal, nor the potential value if you sell bucks or does.

At first glance a seemingly unremarkable tomato, indeed.

A closer look reveals this is in fact a symbol of simple beauty, perfect in its imperfection. It is triumph over chaos, loss, and hunger. This fragrant fruit is a gift of nourishment and second chances.

With fall coming the opportunity to focus on growing my food presents itself again. The summer harvest was affected by my lack of time, my loss of encouragement with just too much going on, and a rat infestation eradicating my new crops. Many days I wanted to be outside cleaning and prepping I was indoors, coping and writing. However, the lack of fresh easily accessible produce has become apparent to both me and my husband. We have felt it in the need for increased shopping and as a result, in our pocketbooks. However, fall in the Bay Area is kind to us and offers us the rare second chance. With that, I have begun preparations for the fall. Crops for the fall are listed below.

In theme with urban farming and second chances, I am also making plans to shift my lifestyle from income based to to time based, a concept I encountered in a class I took years ago and in the book Your Money or Your Life. It is a grand experiment where growing my own food factors in greatly. In the process of poking around for ideas I found a couple of inspiring resources, an intriguing book “Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Place”, by John R. Stilgoe, where the first thing the author prompts us to do is “go outside now.” I also found a series of blog posts called Broke Guy Day Care (I love the Stuffed Animal Birthday Party). Though for parenting, the imagination of the writer inspires creativity and frugality.

Crops to begin for Sepember:

Directly sown:

Roots veggies: beets, carrots, parsnips…etc

Cool weather legumes: peas, pole beans, favas

Spinach

Garlic

To start in flats:

Leafy greens: lettuce, radicchio, chard, mustard

Cruciferous plants: broccolis, kales, cauliflower, collards

Onions

Leeks

Celery

In light of having recently watched Chef Samin and Novella break down a bird, and a recent article on the Pizzaiolo Restaurant chicken coop, I bring you the following video on how another chef gets their chicken: