What is no spray hay???

@@watchandpray8918 hay that hasn't been sprayed with herbicides and pesticides. Even if this hay appears to have no affect on our animals if we use the manure of animals that have eaten certain levels of herbicides on hay in the garden, the garden will not grow.

@@SageandStoneHomestead thanks! I'm also going to look into organic pellets.

I raised rabbits...anyone who sees a psychiatric professional learns quickly to cover their arms during their first few visits. The rabbits tend to cause injuries that lead to a nasty diagnosis of someone who causes self harm, specifically " a cutter."

Terry I have a few scratches right now because I forgot to use our "bunny sleeves" while moving rabbits out of the heat. Look up chef's knife sleeves I think they are called! They work SO well to protect your arms!

Our kids will eat the skin off and leave everything else just about!! LOL! We agree that the skin is the best part!

WOW that's an amazing hatch rate!!

Haha sounds like what we did!

I've heard of that too!!

Yes! I have come across many people who raise rabbits for meat in apartments!

Thank you so much! Rabbits are an amazing livestock to add to a homestead!

That is so neat!

I like the way you think!!! Thanks for watching!

Congratulations!! They sell arm sleeves for chefs, those are awesome to prevent many scratches!

Totally!! Thanks for watching!

Excellent!! I love that.

I've heard great things about American Bressee!

There's a channel called "Slightly Rednecked" and Mike has made sausage before with quail and rabbit mixed!! It was intriguing to me at the time too but definitely seems labor-intensive! I could see maybe taking the meat from the spine/backstrap only for sausage and maybe canning the legs? It's relatively straightforward to get the back meat off!

@@SageandStoneHomestead I agree, that area is the largest easily accessed piece of meat. Just seems it would take so many to have any amount! If you're going to invest that much time & labor, I'd want to do enough to be worthwhile! Mixing the rabbit & quail together does sound good!!

I agree! Maybe we will try it someday!

@@SageandStoneHomesteadI keep the backstrap/loin for quick cooking like chicken breast and the rest (legs etc) for mincing (with Pork fat from friend's piggies) to make sausages. Flavoured with mustard (from local farmer's market), home grown garlic and Italian herbs-Delicious! Sausages are a way to introduce folks to rabbit they might not be familiar with (a whole rabbit looks a bit like a skinned cat!)

@@stephseckold4324 you're right it does! Those are great ideas, thank you!!

It's delicious!

They can scream but usually do not. The most screams we hear are from babies when they are handled.

I've discovered that those of us that raised chickens before and then ditched chickens once we realized how awesome rabbit is are few and far between!!! Glad to see there is another among us!! We sold our chicken processing equipment but I love your method! We live near a few large Amish and Mennonite communities and have access to farm raised chicken and turkey as wanted too, but our kids don't prefer eating it! They like turkey though!

You're SO welcome!! Enjoy your rabbits!!

I hope so too!!

I love quail but they sure do waste a lot of feed. You can soak it/ferment it to add nutrition to the feed and they fling a lot less of it when water is added. I haven't ever had one go broody! If you follow Living Traditions Homestead, Kevin has a quail feeder he makes out of a plastic show tote you may be interested in seeing! Reduces feed waste!

@@SageandStoneHomestead they can go broody if they have a more natural habitat. I've had 2 go broody regularly but I've not really had them be successful yet. But it is more my fault than theirs cause i keep disturbing them as I add bedding and gather eggs and they move to gather a new nest of eggs and restart the cycle, lol. I'm keeping those 2 broodies to see if they will be successful in spring if I support them properly. I have an outdoor run, fully enclosed with buried wire and all, about 10'x10'x3' so they have good space. I don't like keeping them in the small wire cages just from an ethical perspective. I kinda hope to build small tractors to put them in for half days during next year to get them chances to look for bugs and general enrichment. YA!!! I've seen their builds on better feeders, I even have most if the stuff for it i just haven't gotten around to building them yet bc health issues. Living traditions have a lot of good solutions and problem solving over there! That's why I'm curious for your rabbit playlist, to see if there are hidden gems i can use if i ever take the step towards rabbits, to which I'm tempted to. I'm a new sub, so I'm slowly working through older videos.

Awesome! I'm so glad you're here! Your quail habitat sounds so awesome, they must be happy birds!

Thanks so much Diane!! That's really scary about that scratch!!

Thank you, Nollie! ❤

Thank you for watching, Catharine! You have a good day as well!

A fellow MANCHA MAMA!! Hello and welcome to the channel!! ♥♥

You're so welcome!!

It's very exciting!!

We couldn't get any chickens to reliably go broody so it wasn't a one time investment for us like our rabbits were. We bought breeders and they bred and have replaced themselves as needed.

You are so welcome! I'll be starting the Raising Meat Rabbits series soon!!

Thanks so much!! The picnic is only an hour away and we are very excited to come.

That's amazing!!! Our kids just really started getting interested in doing the butchering and they each processed one rabbit last weekend!

Was there a challenge presented? I'm confused. 😅❤

Just that I like buying mugs 🤣

OH okay I had no idea what part of the 30 min you were referencing 🤣🤣

It depends on how long you're gone but there are watering systems that can be either hooked up to a hose or to a 5 gallon bucket to water for many days at a time (still check the nipples to make sure they are working), and cramming a box full of hay would feed for a while, filling up the feed cup all the way. You could do a weekend pretty comfortably with rabbits.

Welcome to the channel!♡

Thank you!! We have a silkie right now, just one. She can only fit about 6-8 eggs under her lol

Excellent! I'm making plans for the playlist!

You're so welcome and I'm glad you found us!! Let me know if you have any questions! I try hard to answer every comment.

But it's not. They compare to Cornish which are sickly and gross so that's on them for choosing such a crappy meat bird. And the money they spent on plucking is silly and not necessary. Her illusion of chickens raising chicks shows a lack of research as well. I get that you have to order them which makes them not viable should the market crash and transportation cease to exist, but STILL.

Great to know! The one we had go broody was a Barred Rock.

We do not ship yet but have entertained the idea! We just need to see what we can do legally. 1000 rabbits!! That's amazing and a lot of fertilizer!

Enjoy! ♥

I looked up a recipe for buffalo chicken and it actually looks VERY adaptable to rabbit since it says to cook in the sauce with a foil tent overtop. The chicken recipe calls for 400 degrees for 20 min which is WAY too high and fast for rabbit. 325 for an hour is what I would do, or crockpot the sauce with the rabbit on low for 8 hours.

Mmmmmm

My sister in law wants to do muscovy ducks!! I would like birds much more if I had more that would reliably lay and raise clutches. That is a big plus if you have birds that will do that reliably! ❤

Do you scald them first? I've never heard of anyone doing that! What's the skin like?

Thank you so much!

We had rex in the beginning too and they were some of the biggest feed hogs we had!!

But, ours were standard rex. Minis I'm sure eat far less 😊

@@SageandStoneHomestead you to take care

It was rabbit pieces in the crockpot with gravy and spices for 4 hours on high

Awesome! I'm going to make a series on raising rabbits!

WOW that sounds incredible! Was the smoker able to cook the tendons and things well so they weren't chewy? We really need to learn how to use our smoker!

@@SageandStoneHomestead low and slow. it was super tender and juicy. You could literally pull pieces of meat away from the bone. When we arrived with them in vacuum bags my nephew said, “Aw, poor rabbits.” After trying the meat he came back for more, multiple times.

That's great!!! Thanks for sharing!

Thank you SO much! Welcome to the channel! ❤🐇❤

@@SageandStoneHomestead Thank you. You are so lovely and thoughtful. I believe I will learn a lot from y'all. :)

@@MiddleEastMilli ❤❤❤

That's great!! I really would love to get into the habit of collecting forage for my rabbits!

Seasoned meat hahah! I love it!!

Thanks!

Thank you, Lisa! ❤🐇

That's why we keep chickens is their lovely eggs! We also will put old laying hens up in cans. Thanks so much for stopping by! ♥

@@SageandStoneHomestead- no problem, I am learning a lot from watching your various videos on goats and now rabbits. I have already chosen which breeds of goats, chickens and rabbits I am going to get once I have the money saved up for my acreage….

Thanks so much for watching!

In the nest box? We have a sawmill near!

We found our Dorkings to be more prone to predation as well! And not super hardy for severe weather.

Great idea!

Oh you can make a gravy from bone broth and whatever flour or Starch you can have and your favorite herbs! Wonderful gravy to cook rabbit in!!

People love to deep-fry them around here and we have yet to try that!!

I'm so glad you love them, we do too! I am tempted to try the fat on the rabbit. I heard it's not tasty but I haven't really tried it!

We do that all the time with canned rabbit or pressure cooked rabbit!!♡♡

Here is the link to the playlist with recipes and information on canning rabbit! kzfaq.info/sun/PLXrP3tEiJQU7Ai6CPabijbJeulMtaccgx

You are SO right! A lot of Amish raise those around here!

i raise racing homers (just started) which are NO WAY as much meat as a "meat pigeon" but watching how fast they grow up i can see why it works! @@SageandStoneHomestead

There's a few reasons we don't love raising chickens and I don't think having a sitting hen would help enough to make me want to raise chickens for meat ! We are in love with raising rabbits. ♥️🐇

@@SageandStoneHomestead yes I love raising rabbits to reason I mention about the chickens is you had said you had a problem getting some chicken and you had to set sorry I thought of a solution

Our kids prefer rabbit at this point, instead of chicken for the same reasons! Part of it is the course grain on the meat. It's hard to get used to after having rabbit a lot!

I'll link you to the whole playlist so you have it, there is at least one maybe 2 recipes in there. Never dry! Thank you so much for commenting and helping defend the channel earlier. Just a sec I'll get the link

The playlist: Raising Meat Rabbits Series: kzfaq.info/sun/PLXrP3tEiJQU7Ai6CPabijbJeulMtaccgx

Here is a recipe not in the playlist: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/g59-da6g3sXbo4k.html

It's something I want to try to figure out. I know people here deep fry them, so breading and frying is likely an option but I'm not 100% sure about breading and baking.

@@SageandStoneHomestead i thought baking cause of the lower temp. I just asked my husband how they use to fix it and he said fried it up in a cast iron skillet just like you would chicken, so now I'm defiantly sold!

I'd love to hear his method so I can try it out!!

@@SageandStoneHomestead he says they soaked it in salt water for at least 8 hours or overnight. Then just rolled it seasoned flour and put it in the hot oil till crispy on both sides. I also found a recipe where you soak it in buttermilk for the same amount of time you don't have to dry it off or anything just take it out roll in flour and fry, I'm eager to try either way!

It's relatively normal to lose 1 or 2 kits out of larger litters. Usually Litters over 8 or 9 I expect a couple losses. If you're able to, see if you can breed 2 does 1 day apart and then when they kindle if they have uneven litters, (say one has 6 and the other has 10 or so) see if you can foster kits over to give them each 8. Something like that! Otherwise sometimes some kits just miss a feeding or 2 and get weak and behind and go downhill from there. In the first week of life I count the kits once a day and if one seems skinny I'll put it on mom to nurse. I have had this save kits before! Hope that helps! ♥

@@SageandStoneHomestead thank you for responding. Not big litters, 5 and 1 dies or 7 and 1 dies. We had a runt on wire yesterday, 2 days old and legs were missing, now baby is GONE, did mama eat it?

We feed Kalmbach rabbit pellets only. 15%. I've done quite a bit of research into it and found that we don't need to feed hay most of the time. I get more into that here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jbSKf9JpxNuUm5s.html

The video title helps illustrate the content of the video, and we truly do not like raising birds. It's our preference based on our experience and your experience may be different and that's fine. For us, rabbits make raising meat enjoyable while chickens were a lot of work, headache, money and stink. Illustrating our experience has given a lot of hope to folks who feel the same way as us, which isn't everyone and we are completely fine with that. If we were all the same the world would be really boring.

We don't keep colony rabbits but some people do. We can cut feed costs with rabbits by feeding them foraged things from our land. But truthfully they don't need it. Each rabbit costs very little to raise up to butcher size by default.

They had a sign up!

That would be a great use for it! We fed it to the hogs when we had them but now our pigs are in the freezer so we plan to compost the refuse!

That's smart! We did away with the turkeys because for what we got out of them they ate an insane amount off feed.

Ah yes, another great breed!

There's a video in the raising rabbits playlist on my page ❤️

Add in straw on top intermittently and the organic material will help with the smell. If bit you can dust barn lime underneath!

Great advice, thank you! When we have pigs that's how we handle our refuse most of the time!

Sorry! 😬😬 maybe keep a pelt on the back of the couch to throw at them when they ask 🤣

@@SageandStoneHomestead genius 🤣🤣🤣

What he does just doesn't work everywhere in every situation. One reason beyond stink (birds themselves stink even if their pen doesn't) that we hate raising chickens is our specific location and very wet and muddy ground most of the year. For us it's a lot easier to manage rabbits up off the ground. There is even more minimal management raising rabbits than the things you mentioned. Deep bedding and managing all of that... not necessary. Plus the raising of chickens is only one thing we don't like. We don't like processing chickens or eating them. We much prefer rabbit in all areas and have zero desire to raise meat chickens ever again. Could we break our backs to force chickens to work? Maybe? But why bother when rabbits are far more enjoyable for us to raise, butcher, and eat?

Sometimes it takes 2 people but I like to do it with them sitting on my milk stand as they would normally be (laying sternal) and use cat nail clippers to snip each nail.

I did a whole series on raising rabbits. We made the series based on how we have successfully raised them ourselves.. not sure what the scientific method has to do with how we raise rabbits?

The series on how to raise rabbits is up on the playlist tab on our channel ❤️

We tried those first and they are beautiful and great. Be careful because there's a lot of "silver fox" out there that are nothing more than a black rabbit with tick marks in their coat. We had a buck and a doe only and the doe was a bad mom and I had a rough time sourcing more in my area so we switched to what we could get!

@@SageandStoneHomestead Thank you!!!

The farm store near us uses Hoover Hatchery. But bird flu could still play a role!

We use Cackle Hatchery in Missouri and they have a huge waitlist because of EVERYone Has decided to get chicks ???

We went with Welp Hatchery this year. We tried many others but they were sold out of the breeds we wanted for layers.

The main thing I know of for certain is the fat content. Rabbit is a leaner protein though it does contain some fat, at least my rabbits do. Rabbit is often cooked in a form of fat, here we use lard.

Very nice!!

Probably because they are a popular meat source. A lot of people can't get past the cuteness of rabbit.

You are right there!!! I love them for eggs and we happily use them to convert kitchen scraps into eggs regularly! Thanks for watching! ♥

We feed the rabbit blood and innards to our pigs. We used to put it at the edge of our property and let the buzzards get it. You could also bury it. I do know of some inner city folks who process rabbits the day before trash day and they bag everything up and throw it away. The blood congeals quite quickly.

@@SageandStoneHomestead I think maybe tilling it into the soil will be the best option for me.

The pellets are more than just alfalfa, at least the ones we buy. They provide a complete nutrition where we don't often feed supplemental things from the kitchen etc.

We agree!!!

That's amazing! We had some show quality Rex genetics that didn't grow out that fast, for sure!!

Very easy!! Thank you!