With apologies to all Vegans

[greenorelse]

I don't enjoy killing anything but I can't honestly see any ethical difference between killing a chicken for food and squidging a caterpillar that's munching on my cabbages, or a slug devastating my lettuces.

It's not a fair comparison, Odsox. In the first case, you're the predator.

Of course it's a fair comparison.

Apologies but I disagree - that is, when talking in the context of what you're choosing to eat. In other words, you're taking a life to eat in one case and taking a life you're not going to eat - when clear alternatives exist - in the other. That was my point (I hope and think )

A life is a life regardless whether it's a pretty fluffy bunny or an ugly slimy slug.

+110% - I agree entirely.

[oldjerry]

[quote="Susie"]Now I'm questioning my entire way of eating. Bugger, and I thought I'd got a workable solution. I think I'm going to go and eat some (vegan) dark chocolate and imagine OJ carefully brushing his angora rabbits, until the feeling passes.

Well actually you don't brush them you comb them.(thinks,....hmm.. maybe 'carefully brushing his angoras ' is a euphimism for something completely unrelated to rabbits).

Anyhow,I wasn't pointing the finger at people who can, and those who can't kill the meat they are prepared to eat,or the by product of the milk they're prepared to drink,who the hell am I to judge?

More interestingly,I,though prepared to kill anything I've raised myself,bar the kids(but occasionally they get close),am disgusted,and horrified by roadkill.I've shot dozens of foxes, rabbits etc.but I'd drive off the road rather than run over one.

Weird huh??...

[123sologne]

Well, oldjerry, I can understand you. While I am pretty sure I could kill my meat, having seen it being done by my family so many times, I also think it is disgusting to see all these animals kill on the road. It is not always avoidable, but people should try harder.

[citizentwiglet]

Only skim-read this (it's that time of night, LOL!), but this is a very interesting thread.

The killing doesn't bother me, AS LONG as the animal is used up as much as possible. I have my pagan views on this, which are similar to those of the Native Americans about honouring an animal's spirit by not being wasteful with its body. I eat those meats I 'could' (in theory) kill. I HAVE killed a chicken, a duck and a rabbit. I have fished. I haven't actually shot a deer or a pigeon, I'm sure I could if I wasn't a lousy shot on computer games (haven't tried in real life). I couldn't be the kind of farmer who large-scale farms - bringing an animal up in overcrowded misery in a shed and then pack it off to systematic slaughter in an abbatoir; which is why I don't eat lamb, or beef or pork. It's the whole farming method for me, the whole idea of animals simply as a resource to be born, and fed, and killed, and wrapped in plastic for us to chomp on without thinking twice about it (then throwing half of it away).

If I couldn't see myself killing it myself, I just won't eat it. I won't pass the buck on to the butcher to salve my conscience in some way.

[JulieSherris]

Well, we looked at doing the whole rabbit thing 2 years ago - and STILL haven't gotten around to doing anything about it!

So this year could very well be the year that we start. I already have my source for breeding stocks sorted & plan to invest in a couple of new zealand does, with a giant buck. Should give us a decent sized offspring for the pot.

The whole killing thing isn't a problem either. I already do our own chooks, ducks and turkeys, and quite often get help from the 6 yr old granddaughter - (oops, she's 7 - it's her birthday today!)
She insists that nothing dies without being named, so while the birds are hanging in the traffic cone waiting for the knife, she performs a small naming ceremony And we quite often name our eating stock as well as the keepers - it's not a problem.

All I have to do now is decide where to have these bunnies and see if we can afford to fit in the set-up with the proposed indoor projects this year

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Well, I've discussed the whole bunny-munching business with the Boss and I'm to scope out a piece of the bas coeur for a suitable pen with a view to acquiring a pair in spring. We've got a local-ish breed called the Rex de Poitou which is what everyone who keeps rabbits seems to have.

[123sologne]

I just realised I have never known what my mum's rabbits were as far as breed was concerned....
They must have been rex du Poitou, but I am not quite sure as there seam to be many different very similar ones just different colours... I always loved the "papillons" as we called them, which I think is dalmatians in English? Anyway that brings me onto something else, not only can you eat your rabbit but you can use its fur. That looks to be the case for all rabbits except the angora which are bread for their hair as oldjerry mentioned. I would never use any animal fur except for rabbit fur, as I eat rabbit meat and it would be a shame to waste its fur.
By the way, based on what I could find on French web-sites, rabbit farming is still a farming that has not been touch too much by the factory farming methods (but is does exist unfortunately). There are 300000 growers in France and the average farm has below 20 females.
Rabbit meat is low in fat, pretty much like chicken with around 6% fat.
Rabbit poo is a great fertilizer too, so there is plenty of goodness to come from the rabbits!
I may have to reconsider my views on not having rabbits when we go back to France.... It is just the diseases that scare me as I would hate to loose all my rabbits as quickly as I have seen my mum loosing hers, or loosing nearly all of her rabbits.

[boboff]

It is odd what you see when you look.

During this morning ablutions, I did look in smallholder for Rabbits, and there they were!

It's a great idea I think, and one which I may well take further, or at least put it in the plan!

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I would never use any animal fur except for rabbit fur, as I eat rabbit meat and it would be a shame to waste its fur.

Indeed - my four-year-old was given by her Godmother a winter coat made from the skins of wild rabbits. The contents of the skins were made into the finest terrine I have ever eaten. Not by me, I should add, but by a local charcutier.

By the way, based on what I could find on French web-sites, rabbit farming is still a farming that has not been touch too much by the factory farming methods (but is does exist unfortunately). There are 300000 growers in France and the average farm has below 20 females.

There are some methods based on battery like cages, but it seems that bunnies don't take too well to the over-intensive system. Lapin fermier is always a good bet from a wealfare standpoint, though.

Rabbit poo is a great fertilizer too, so there is plenty of goodness to come from the rabbits!

And it can be applied fresh without burning plant leaves.

Trebbles all round, I'd say!

[oldjerry]

I've looked at a few of those french sites and it seems to me you've got a hell of a head start.Ditto I epect in Italy where I've not seen them for sale,but you often see old women carrying them about.
If you get the chance to look at a copy of 'The Smallholder Encyclopaedia' (circa1948-1954),the best publication of all time ,Ireckon,but hard to find,there is loads of detail of rabbit housing etc,and,as with all the info in this fab book,it'sfrom a time that's largely pre factory systems they are pure and simple for the small holder/backyarder.

[red]

I keep considering keeping rabbits for meat (and angora for fur - as we spin our own wool) but I would need someone to show me how to despatch a rabbit properly - and the best way for the rabbit.

we do kill and eat our own meat here - the sheep and pigs we send to the abattoir *

Chickens, turkeys and ducks we do ourselves and I dont think I shall ever be happy about it. its always sad and grim and messy.

BUT - I'm convinced my birds get a much better deal than the shop bought ones - a good life, longer life than average, no transportation (which i think is the grimmer part of slaughtering birds) and a quick instant death.

unless you are vegan, there will always be that spare males to be disposed of issue. chickens dont live that long, so you have to breed replacements.. for us we eat the cockerels and the older hens (if they dont fall off the perch first).

I'm not a meat eater through laziness of lack of thinking about it. I've thought about it long and hard and i revisit it each time we send an animal off to slaughter or we kill poultry, and I always conclude I am doing the right thing.


I also believe in using as much of the animal as you can, and even make soap from the fat now.

*we use the abattoir because we dont have the equipment, and the paperwork/legalities make it tricky. and the abattoir is close.

[Berti]

this is a great thread I think.
good that we all keep thinking about how meat gets on our plates and why.
that there are other ways.
its especially the other ways, that bother me......I have no problems with people slaughtering their own animals or do human slaughter (no, should say, low stress slaughter for the animal, comes closer), we don't slaughter humans, after all......
hmm. now i think of that........that would solve some other problems entirely and save a lot of money too...
when we are done with granny, have a feast??? :)) (sorry.......sometimes the mind is like that...)

this again, makes me think........how come that we do now have mass production of meat.
what would happen if we went back to basics on the animals, less animals, good life and low stress slaughter, and organic probably too.
would we still have enough meat for everyone? here in netherlands more farms open shops and sell their own stuff.
which is a good step in the right direction but does not say anything in how far the above would have been met.

killing meat myself: I don't know......I would not like it and would have to overcome a lot. chickens or rabbits okay.
but a pig or cow? or sheep?

[oldjerry]

Red,I'm with you 100% with the slaughtering issue.Now we are an empty holding(afew goats that are going with us,and a token barren sowsow,so at least it doesn't look like a post-FandM situation,God forbid),I've had more time to think about this stuff,(and drone on endlessly).Way back,Dad and I would slaughter our own pigs,but I wouldn't take the risk now.Some hill farmers up here on the common do have permits to kill their own animals(in case they are roadkill) that could be a way round it.Ditto people who farm deer for venison.There are loads of people who will come to yours and do the butchery(and if you watch them enough times..)We still have a good small abbattior 10 miles away,but I have heard of licenced slaughtermen proposing to put travelling outfits together(works for dipping,shearing etc.so could be done with a bit of ingenuity) but I dont know if anything has come of it.
Just another thought,re killing rabbits,just go ferreting with someone,by the end of a good day,you'll have no problem.

[red]

ferrets are a good idea :)

re butchery - we butcher the pigs ourselves, we get the carcass back from the abattoir and take it from there. it saves money, but also we can make decisions on joint size etc as we go. and we bone out the shoulder etc to make sausages, sausage meat, burgers etc.

[oldjerry]

I've tried my own butchering but it just looked like a cheap remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,though I've always made our own saus,bacon,black pud,pate etc