Friday 14 March 2014

Our first Cloghermore rabbit meat

I know there are a lot of you who will be saying 'aahh how could we', but everything grown at Cloghermore has a purpose and we intended on raising rabbits for meat.
Last October we welcomed the arrival of our first rabbit kits. Five were born to our doe 'Spot' who sadly died last month, and fathered by our buck 'Jacko'. Jacko has gone to a new home to continue his life of love, to make way for our new Old English Spot rabbits.







Once the babies reached nearly five months old we decided it would be a good time to take the plunge and turn them into meat. A mix of emotions, I did try to sell them to a pet shop, but they were too old. So Diz dispatched them.








 He butchered them and saved the fur for curing later. Not sure what they will be turned into but the pelts were too lovely to just dispose of.
We were surprised to have 750g per rabbit, which is enough meat to easily feed the two of us and possibly for two days depending on how it's cooked.






The first dinner was rabbit in a creamy mushroom and leak sauce served with mash potato and steamed sprouting broccoli. The meat was tender and slightly sweet, and a definite success. It has roughly cost us €10 per rabbit to produce. This is production over the winter, we are hoping it will cost less over the summer as there will be so much other free stuff they can eat.
We are hoping to be able to sell the Old English Spot babies which will help with the cost of feeding all the rabbits. We currently have seven adults, but two will be sold and the rest will produce meat or kits for selling. That's the plan, but who knows what will happen.

We have two females that were mated last month and are just waiting to see if they will give birth, we won't know until it happens. Fingers crossed.

We'll keep you posted.
Stell and Diz

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