We enjoy raising rabbits as a meat product. Unfortunately, it’s not very cheap to raise a rabbit. It actually costs about as much to raise a rabbit for meat as raising a chicken (and takes about as much time). However, because of the skin, head, feet, etc, the live to meat conversion is about 50% but on a chicken it is about 65-70% (for the heritage breeds we raise). This means we have to charge more per pound for rabbits. If only we could use all those other pieces and distribute the cost, making the meat cheaper. Finally, we have been successful at figuring out how!
We are now selling Raw Dog Food products! Specifically, we are packaging the heads and feet for the raw dog food community. It turns out, these are used as treats for dogs. In fact, I discovered websites selling 1/2 lbs of rabbit feet for $10! We have also developed some outlets for the rabbit pelts.
The bottom line is, we have a new customer base and the use of previously discarded parts means we can LOWER our prices for rabbit meat. These days almost nothing gets cheaper, but we found a way to do it. We also improved our packaging of the rabbits so they are less likely to get freezer burn. Now is a great time to try rabbit!
How does that work with the dogs? Do you just give them the feet frozen? Or do you defrost them first? No issues with the dogs eating the bones?
We are still learning a lot about raw diets. Right now, we are not using the rabbit feet for Mack since we are just starting to experiment with things. However, yes, the people who feed rabbit feet and heads, toss the whole thing to the dog. I don’t know if it matters if they are frozen. They are supposed to be a chewing treat, so frozen might actually help. There is a Yahoo group called “Ct_rawfeeders” if you are interested in local discussions. Some people feed whole bones, while other feed ground meat.