Rabbits multiple over night .

[Widgeondeke]

Suppose your coworker has the buck? Gestation is only thirty days give or take by the number of kits about to be kindled. More couple days early, less couple days late. Lordisis is the position a doe takes when she is in the mood. Put your hand on her back and if she sort of bends down in front and up in the back she is in cycle. Bucks are ever ready. Doe goes into the bucks cage.

Was buying backyard rabbits with commercial type and multiplying them. Got everyone I knew a freezer supply and started running newspaper ads. First question was always: "What breed are they?" Deal was one for ten dollars your choice or three for twenty my choice. Anyone wanting three was interested in eating them. Quick butchering lesson was to pull them out of the freezer. Saying watch me pull a rabbit out of my pocket sort of gives away the magic. Could sale as many five pounders as where taking up cage space for a dollar a pound every two weeks to a processor.     

Went to the fair and joined the American Rabbit Breeders Association (ARBA). Next local show picked out Chocolate Satin to be my breed and variety. Satin is a commercial type ten pound adults about five pound fryers at about nine weeks. The Satin has a shine like no other breed. Got plenty of ribbons winning legs. Three legs puts Grand Champion on the pedigree.
Saw trophies for best in show but never won one.

Bought my first computer to run a program to print out pedigrees. Show quality breeding stock was twenty for one. Found a new hobby giving advice on message boards. After a while the advice was to search the archives because everything that could be asked about multiplying rabbits had already been thoroughly discussed.

Really had the operation going smooth. Processor closed. All the sudden. Those also ran ready to ship had no where to go. Next bunch was two weeks behind them, on back to the does scheduled for breeding. Could do ten from caged to freezer ready including clean up in about an hour.

How do you want that rabbit cooked that we will be eating AGAIN tonight?

Satins have a sheen, not a shine.
 

    smart arse 

[Airnip]

Sheen could enhanced by feeding whole barley, as supplement in a separate
feeder from the pellets. If both were fed in the same one, they would dig out the pellets through the wire to the ground. Disqualifying offense to put something on the coat. Nothing in the rules against feeding. Always wrestled around my show prospects to make them tame to handling by the judges. Comb and brush them out before putting them in show cages. Out in the parking lot wipe them down with silk. Brings out sheen.

The whole show is really about picking a pair to breed. Judges are wrestling the rabbits pretty quickly. No hurry back at the house. Criteria for selection increases as cage space comes to be filled with better individuals. Selecting for reproduction instinct might not include breed conformation. Then again  selling live ones at twice or four times the price paid from a processor does help make expenses.

Quarantine any that have been anywhere. Take care of them last. Whenever
out and around other rabbits I'd shower and change clothes before going to mine. Had cut off to slip on rubber boots on the back porch to wear during daily chores.

Another remarkable feature of Chocolate Satin breed is fire eye. Eyes gleam
red in dim light. You could even say they glow or shine.

[lhrbull]

we had red satins

[Airnip]

Red is a pretty good color on a rabbit. Red loose hair is really difficult to see on their meat.

 Preference for commercial rabbits to be albino white is generally given to be the same reason. Although white hair is much easier to see than red. Rabbit brain is used to make blood clotting powder. From albino the powder is naturally white. From colored it is a less desirable shade toward grey.

Used chocolate Satin bucks exclusively. Would buy other variety Satin does. By the third generation foundation stock slipped off the pedigree Through selection great grand offspring would be more likely be chocolate than any other variety. 

[lhrbull]

my daughter had the reserve champion in junior buck at the national show that they had in Puyallup years ago

[Airnip]

Astonishing height for a rabbit to win over such a field of also ran. Enjoy the fact that rabbit shows against it's class on the table. Not some imaginary ideal. Right here and right now. Judge choose the very best one. Home court advantage? Headlines should have been;

LOCAL RABBIT WINS BIG.

Remarkable that living in Tacoma. Getting the daily News Tribune. Never found out there was a national convention of the American Rabbit Breeder Association. Uptown. Was pretty much in my area of operations.

Bought the house with the weeds waist high. Chewing down the vegetation revealed  holes all over like craters of the moon. Rototilled raked it out and planted edible landscaping. Food instead of grass. Rabbits were part of all that. Remember buying cages for resale. Builder claimed the only way anyone could tell he raised rabbits was that he was always the first in the spring to get behind his lawn mower.

Some people like cream and sugar on their strawberries. We put manure on ours.

[lhrbull]

we chose reds because we raised red cattle

[Airnip]

My Father preferred red livestock. He came home from eastern dry side with a pig in his pocket. Yelm phone, Roy address, about three miles from the Nisqually bridge in McKenna. Pure red Duroc boar for terminal crosses.

He was very tame. The wholesale local buyer of wieners was always glad to take as many as he could get to grow out from his seed.

Spring and fall farm paydays. Until one day my Dad complained he was getting tired. Mom told him if he would quit feeding pigs he could afford to retire. Very next Saturday after the auction, place was like a hog ghost town.

Duroc hog like a Satin rabbit is unmistakably a meat animal.

[jackelope]

I can't actually speak the words "meat rabbit" in my house. The girls would lead a hostile overthrow of the household.

Dutch and Jersey Wooly rabbits at my place.

[Airnip]

Would have to be a lot hungrier than just late for dinner to consider eating any child's prized ribbon winning pet.

It would be the other lesser, possibly mean ones that could end up maybe fresh camp meat on unaccompanied hunting trips. Animals in my
childhood either ended up on the dinner table or disappeared mysteriously.
Someone's motto was; 'breed the best, sale the rest'. Might need to be other hunters eating your lunch.

Suppose that there is word for the class of rabbits including Dutch and Havana sized. These breeds are about the original size of natural wild European rabbits. The Netherland dwarf was bred down in size to provide plate sized fryer individual serving demand in restaurants.









   

[jackelope]

Would have to be a lot hungrier than just late for dinner to consider eating any child's prized ribbon winning pet.

It would be the other lesser, possibly mean ones that could end up maybe fresh camp meat on unaccompanied hunting trips. Animals in my
childhood either ended up on the dinner table or disappeared mysteriously.
Someone's motto was; 'breed the best, sale the rest'. Might need to be other hunters eating your lunch.

Suppose that there is word for the class of rabbits including Dutch and Havana sized. These breeds are about the original size of natural wild European rabbits. The Netherland dwarf was bred down in size to provide plate sized fryer individual serving demand in restaurants.

They're considered compact body style.
Dinner would not be made from the nice show animals.  Just the not so nice ones. In the world of marked breeds, the mismarked animals go to freezer camp.
The Jersey Wooly is just a wool covered Netherland Dwarf. In fact every once in a while a fuzzy ND shows up in a litter. They have great body type and folks will show them as Woolies.

[Airnip]

Growing up an Air Force brat, our family was living in an Italian villa. Had a five acre citrus orchard surrounded by a six foot high wall with broken glass embedded in the top. Armed guard taught us the local Libya method of rabbit raising.

He dug a hole about chest deep. Then dug starter tunnels in the bottom sides. Add rabbits. Few times clearing tunnel digging spoils. Feeding time cut a basket of alfalfa. Throw it into the hole. Watering dunk a loaf of bread (like French/ Italian loaves) in a bucket. Throw it into the hole. Garden weeds and kitchen peelings to round out the diet.

Harvest was by trimming a date palm branch leaving the last couple of fronds. These tied together would form a loop. Lower the loop at feeding time. Slip it over a head and twist the stick. Shazam rabbit on the menu.

In hot climate with minimum refrigeration rabbit makes a fine delicious critter the right size to eat fresh.