I Cooked a Rabbit!

New Zealand White Rabbit, photo courtesy of laugh45

For a couple of years I have considered raising meat chickens, ducks, or rabbits for a protein food supply. I don't have enough flatish land for larger livestock like a cow or a pig. Rabbits, of course, require the smallest amount of space so they are high on the list.

However, I hadn't any recollection of ever eating rabbit, although I'm fairly sure I must have when I was a young kid. Finding a domestic rabbit and cooking it to check the list became important, and finally I found frozen rabbit about 3 weeks ago in a grocery store in a nearby town.

This was a VERY small rabbit, just a tad under 1.5 pounds, whereas an average young fryer dresses out at 3 pounds or more. Still, I thought it would be enough meat to give it a try, and not much wasted expense in the event I didn't like the taste.

Top of the photo are the belly pieces and the rib cage, which went into the freezer for stock later. Lower on the photo are the skinny forelegs, fatter back legs, and the backbone cut into 2 pieces.

First, I needed to cut up the rabbit, and found several photo tutorials online. There is very little meat anywhere but the hind legs, although I cooked the backbone section and the front legs as well. I'm sure a larger sized rabbit would have more meat on the backbone and front quarters. The "belly" was very thin, and it went into a freezer bag with the rib cage to make stock when I have enough bones, using a mix of rabbit and chicken.

I'm told rabbit fat is as un-palatable as venison fat, so it got trimmed away. (There wasn't much of it anyway.) Most of the outer silverskin had already been trimmed before it was frozen, but after my disjointing there was still a little more to trim.

It actually does taste a lot like chicken, although I thought it had a bit more flavor than commercial chicken. I fried it without any seasoning except salt and pepper so that any added herbs or spices wouldn't mask the rabbit flavor. I just dipped it in milk and rolled it in flour with a little salt and pepper.

My neighbor / friend Buster used to raise meat rabbits and I'm sure he will offer advice and help when I'm ready. If I decide to try raising rabbits, it will only be on a small scale. Timing depends on my health over the next few months, and whether I can stomach the butchering process. (I think I can, but I have to do it to be sure.)

Remember Tom Sawyer's Whitewash?

Photo © Cindy Lovell / AP

Well, I do... and reading about 'whitewashing' the fence... and since today is Earth Day, it seems a good time to post it. I had an idea of what whitewash is... sort of, but not really. Turns out it's a useful, cheap and non-toxic finish that can substitute for paint in many areas. Probably not inside the house, unless you applied it in summer and let it air out until fall, although many older farm houses were painted inside with whitewash.

I came across the notion of whitewash when researching 'caves' to age cheese. It's great for that, and just as wonderful to apply to barn interiors for farm animals, outbuildings, stables, chicken coops, etc. The lime has a purifying action, kills germs, and does not act as a medium for their growth.

A basic recipe is 2 gallons of water, 12 cups hydrated lime aka quicklime (which is very white, unlike the lime applied to fields which is usually gray) and 4 cups salt. I paid under $8 at the local Ag store for a 50 pound bag of hydrated lime, so this is very inexpensive 'paint'. I'll but bulk salt at Sam's or a local Ag dealer.

Actually, whitewash is not really a paint, but instead it's a 'wash', which will eventually begin to flake, or rub off if you lean against it, and the reason why whitewash was reapplied every few years.  It will also wear down over time if exposed to rain. However, the addition of milk or rice flour (or an animal glue) makes it last longer outdoors, like on the fence belonging to Tom's Aunt Polly. (The casein in the milk, or protein in the flour, binds to the lime to make a kind of 'cement' so it sticks better and lasts longer.)

I plan to whitewash the inside of my root cellar to clean and brighten it, once it gets warm enough to empty it out for a few days. I want to re-do the shelving in there, too, and install a breaker box in place of the old fuse box. I'll post pictures and notes when I tackle THAT project!

There is also a paint called Milk Paint, one of the oldest types of paint on earth, and one of the longest-lasting. Along with egg tempera, it was the standard artist paint of the middle ages. Casein, as it's properly called, remained popular for decoration through the mid-1800s, and it’s what gives Colonial furniture its soft color.

Curdle a bucket of milk with vinegar, strain out the curds, add some borax or lime and some pigment, and you're basically ready to go. Milk paint, properly prepared, will last for centuries. Milk protein, stripped of its fat (curds) is incredibly sticky.

Here's some links on Whitewash recipes and instructions, and following them, some links for Milk Paint.

Craftsman Style, How to Whitewash (click to read the page after it, too)

WikiHow How to Make Whitewash

How to Make and Use Whitewash

Whitewash

Homemade Milk Paint Recipe

Milk Paint

Martha Stewart: Milk Paint Recipe

Chickens and Guineas

Photo courtesy of Just chaos' photostream

I have been planning on raising chickens to supply eggs and meat for several years now, held back only by lack of funds (and a reluctance to visualize hauling fresh water three times a day in the dead of winter).

The only space I have to let them free-range is in the yard where the flower beds and vegetable gardens are. The photo at the top here shows the exposure of a carrot root by a scratching chicken, and that idea poses a problem for me. I cannot afford to fence off all the garden areas, but I also do not want chickens always enclosed in a pen. To me, that defeats the purpose of having chickens!

I've come across several backyard poultry sites where they tout guineas, either mixed in with chickens, or just the flock of guineas.

Advantages
Guineas are great for keeping down ticks, Japanese beetles and other bugs and at the same time, do not scratch up the dirt like chickens do... thus little to no damage to flower and vegetable gardens.

They make great 'watchdogs'!!

The birds are edible and a great alternative to chickens. The flesh is said to taste slightly gamey but less assertive than pheasant or grouse. The eggs are small but edible, and it takes 2 guinea eggs to equal 1 chicken egg. The positive side of the smaller egg size is there is more yolk per egg, and the egg yolk of any fowl contains the best nutritional values.

Disadvantages
Guineas prefer to roost in trees, making them targets for predators. They also prefer to lay their eggs in hidden areas. However, I understand those traits can be changed by several methods. One helpful tip is handling the keets (babies) many times a day, and training them to come to you with millet treats. That makes them easy to train to a coop and cage at nightfall.

A tall cage around the coop fitted with tree branches inside gives them high roosting places. As for their penchant for laying eggs in hidden places... folks who have guineas AND chickens find the guineas will often lay their eggs in the hen boxes.

Guineas can be noisy, the hens more so than the males because the hens sing. An option is to have all males; unlike roosters, guinea cocks do not fight each other for dominance.

So my current thinking is to start with a half dozen or so males (if I can get just males), until I can afford to make my garden areas chicken-proof. That will get me back in the groove of the responsibilities of keeping domestic birds again, and help rid my yard of bugs, especially Japanese beetles. Guinea eggs are not essential for me; not many people eat guinea eggs anyway as they are more valuable as fertile eggs to hatch. If I have only males in the beginning, I will have time to decide if I want guinea hens, or chicken hens... or both.

If that doesn't work out for me, I can always butcher and eat them!