It is understandable that parents and people who have children in their lives might have some concerns when it comes to raising meat rabbits alongside children, especially when those children are aware of what is going on.
This is a fair question and a fair concern. It is not, of course, exclusive to raising rabbits for meat. It is a concern for all sorts of homesteading, food growing, and meat animal raising. After all, this is not the norm for the vast majority of the population. Farmers, large and small, are something of an outsider group in “mainstream” circles.
And while the outer world is not your “problem” to solve, you should put some thought into how best to handle the issue of raising animals for meat when there are children involved, whether those children are your own, grandchildren, friends, or visitors.
Jump to:
- My Experience, My Advice as a Mother of Four Homestead Children
- Give Kids Credit
- Kids Are Resilient
- Be Confident in What You Are Doing and Your Why
- Teach Kids Where Real Food Comes From!
- VIDEO: Crediting Kids and Making Them a Part of Raising Your Meat Rabbits
- Trust The Confidence of Connection to Your Food
- Teach Children to Know, Respect, Accept, And Appreciate the Cycle of Life In All Things
- Be Clear from the Beginning
- Resist Anthropomorphism
- Set up A System of Knowledge and Understanding
- Ages and Stages Will Work in Your Favor
- Involve Children in Age Appropriate Chores
- Involve Children in Age Appropriate Harvesting Tasks
- Tolerate No Cruelty; Teach Your Kids the Difference!
- Give Your Children Words and Talking Points for the Outer World
- Celebrate Hard Work and Accomplishments
- Make Some Great Rabbit Dishes, Or Some Old Favorites With Rabbit to Enjoy the Fruits of Their Labors!
My Experience, My Advice as a Mother of Four Homestead Children
Though I am not an “expert,” I have raised a few kids (four, to be exact!). I actually do have a background in early childhood education and have some child development courses under my belt (though we never did harvest rabbits at the preschool!).
I used to be a child, too. A child who grew up on a dairy farm where cows were both milked and eaten. A farm where other types of animals were grown exclusively for food. So, I can speak from a place of experience on both counts.
Their entire lives, my children (now all young adults) were exposed to farms, farming, gardening, and animals being raised for meat. They were all aware and involved in the harvests of all sorts of meat animals, from meat chickens and turkeys to ducks and larger animals, including pork, beef, and veal. We have, at various times, milked goats and cows. We have experienced both life and death.
We continue to have many youngsters on and about the homestead. Naturally, they take great interest and pleasure in the rabbits. We continue to field some balance and questions in regard to the purpose and fate of the meat rabbits here.
So, while what follows is my opinion, it is also my experience. I offer it as advice from one parent to another. I offer it as an example of how we have managed to keep animals for meat and how that experience has gone for our family. I am not any type of therapist, and so probably legally, I need to say take this as my experience with a grain of salt and don’t take this as “expert” advice.
Give Kids Credit
The reason this topic is even an issue is that we don’t credit kids with being able to face and handle situations that come with a level of discomfort. (Even though that discomfort is often man-made -- would you know to be nervous about eating rabbit if someone didn’t tell you to be nervous about eating rabbit?).
If we give our kids the credit for believing they can handle this most basic of life’s essentials, there’s a lot that never even has to become an issue.
In my experience, the discomfort of adults and treating meat as something sad or abnormal is where the root of anxiety over homegrown meats comes in. It is often our assumption that kids will have a hard time raising and harvesting meat that makes that true. It is seldom that those feelings of anxiety originate with the children. It’s more common that they feed off our treating them like they can’t handle the situation and instilling feelings of anxiety in them.
Kids Are Resilient
Children are resilient. Children can handle the realities of life when we allow realities to be just that -- normal, real life. In my experience it is adults that have a much harder time with this!
Expose children to the realities of raising food and farm life from an early age. The earlier you start, the better.
This goes for all types of food that you grow. It goes for all types of meat and animals that you grow. They have a purpose. You are using them for that purpose. You are allowing the animal to fulfill its purpose. Teach this to your children confidently and without shame.
The “shame” that is imposed by others is their problem, not yours, and certainly not your children’s.
Be Confident in What You Are Doing and Your Why
If you are going to be able to impart a sense of confidence and belief in what you are doing (raising your own healthy, humanely grown food), then you have to live it first. While there are steps of the process and living and learning that you can do together, you need to at least be very clear on why you, as a parent or parents, are choosing to grow rabbits for meat. Do your research. Start well. Be informed. Be confident in your choice, and exude that to your children. They are much more receptive than we often think!
If you treat raising meat rabbits like something you are unsure of or uncomfortable with, that is what the children in your life will feel. If you impart feelings of comfort, respect, and accomplishment, that is what your children will learn. Kids look to us for direction. Make sure you lead them in the right one.
Teach Kids Where Real Food Comes From!
….Kids need to know where food comes from and that that place is not from a store shelf. Store shelves are where food goes, not where it comes from.
I’m certain I’m preaching to the choir here, but the point is that there are a lot of children (and adults) who don’t know what food in its natural form is or that that form is often a living animal. They allow themselves to disconnect from their food by seeing it as parts, not as an animal whole. That makes it difficult to think of animals as whole beings and to face the meaning of that.
When kids know where all sorts of foods come from, then suddenly, a piece of rabbit is not so different from a piece of chicken, pork, or beef.
VIDEO: Crediting Kids and Making Them a Part of Raising Your Meat Rabbits
Trust The Confidence of Connection to Your Food
When kids are well connected to their food (or adults, for that matter), they simply see food as food without becoming too overwhelmed by emotional attachments. Kids who are raised as meat growers and meat eaters view meat animals in much the same way they view vegetable plants in the garden. While there is beauty to the organized and well-cared for rows, they still view the peas as vegetables on the plate.
This is something that has to be experienced to be fully understood. But it doesn’t take long to build that confidence and understand how growing and harvesting your own food, like meat rabbits, builds a level of confidence, acceptance, and appreciation in what you are doing. All of this makes growing and harvesting your animals easier, especially over time.
People have grown increasingly disconnected from food sources, and it shows. In so many ways, it shows! Establish a connection for your kids (and yourself) that others do not have, This in itself will get you over many hurdles.
Teach Children to Know, Respect, Accept, And Appreciate the Cycle of Life In All Things
It's a short trip from understanding the overall cycle of life to understanding your meat and your food’s place in it.
We as a society separate meat out as a separate piece of a very natural, well-designed puzzle. When you have and give kids the whole picture, they don’t view meat or rabbits as something to be considered separately. They become just another option.
Be Clear from the Beginning
From the very beginning of keeping meat rabbits, be open, clear, and honest with your kids.
- Explain the purpose and reason for the rabbits
- From day one, explain that meat rabbits are food, not pets
- Be clear about which rabbits are short-term stays (the grow outs) and which are long-term tenants in your barn (the breeders)
- Do not name short-term stays
- Breeders can have names, and kids can choose (with your blessing) to name them
- Or, you can choose not to name any of your livestock rabbits and save the names for the pets
- In that case, opt for an identification code instead
Resist Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is an impressive word that just means assigning human emotions and characteristics to a non-human form like an object, God, or, in this case, an animal.
Clearly, if you are eating an animal, you do not consider it to be human. So don’t treat it like one, and kids won’t view it as on par with humans, either. And no, this does not mean you do not respect the animals. It just means you don’t accept it as the same as you or your children.
Set up A System of Knowledge and Understanding
When you set kids up with information, knowledge, and understanding, they will generalize and understand things on their level and in increasing levels of awareness over time.
It is enough to let kids maintain understanding at their own level. More adults would probably be more understanding if we considered things on a more logical, childlike level.
Have meaningful conversations:
- Talk about why you choose to grow your own meat
- Make rabbit meat as normal as chicken, beef, pork, and other meats
- Teach children to respect the life and contribution of the rabbits that are destined to be food
- Talk about the control you have over the food you grow
- Explain the comfort and knowledge connected to knowing you fed and cared for your food animals well
- Explain how that is something that can never really be guaranteed for any animal that you did not grow yourself and for which you did not have daily connections
- Talk about how rabbit is a much more regular food and, in fact, a staple food in many cultures and that in many parts of the world, it is not uncommon at all
Ages and Stages Will Work in Your Favor
Everyone loves the cute furry baby. But how long does that last, even for a large number of pet rabbits? How long before they’re overlooked and forgotten?
On a practical level, the ages and stages of life will work in your favor. The benefit of the meat rabbitry is that there are always young babies to capture kids’ interests. By the time they are “over it”, there is a new set to dote on as the older sets move on to serve their intended purpose.
Life and reality help, too. When the novelty of newness wears off, and chores become tedious, lightening the load for a while by completing a harvest can be a welcome reduction in responsibilities.
It’s okay to embrace that rest and allow kids to embrace it, too, as you settle down to appreciate a job well done and a hard-earned harvest completed.
Involve Children in Age Appropriate Chores
Make raising meat normal by making the day-to-day normal. Let your kids into the rabbitry and become acclimated to the rhythms of life and rabbit raising.
A sense of reverence and responsibility for your food is the best way I can think of to sustain you through the more difficult tasks of rabbit raising and harvesting. The same reverence can carry your kids through it, too, if you let it. But to feel that deep connection and sense of responsibility, you have to have some awareness and, better yet, involvement in the process.
Impress upon your kids how important it is to be responsible for the animals in their care. Assign age-appropriate chores. Impress how important it is to those animals, and hence your food, and hence yourselves, that those chores get done every day. There is pride to be had in responsibility. That is a gift you can give your kids.
Involve Children in Age Appropriate Harvesting Tasks
Harvesting is the hard part of rabbit raising. The more you treat this like it is something to be scared of, the more your kids will be scared of it.
Let kids observe the process from a young age. Even let them take part when it is safe and reasonable for them to do so.
It would not, of course, be safe or reasonable for a four or five-year-old child to run a razor-sharp knife to eviscerate a meat rabbit. But it is safe and reasonable for them to carry that carcass to a cooler filled with ice water (or even to prepare that cooler to receive those carcasses).
This is yet another opportunity to gift your kids a sense of confidence and pride. And to show them that you believe in them and their ability to handle difficult tasks!
Even the more reluctant children can be involved in the process. (Although in my experience, when this isn’t billed as a big deal, it isn’t that big of a deal.) Maybe they are not comfortable with observing or taking part at the slaughter site, but they could help by preparing and collecting supplies and packaging or carrying packaged animals to the freezer.
At some step in the process, there is something that every member of the family can do to contribute.
Tolerate No Cruelty; Teach Your Kids the Difference!
Raising food and harvesting food is not cruel. It is natural. Don’t allow your children to be cruel or inhumane to animals, even those that are destined to be harvested for food.
Teach children about humane care, handling, management, dispatch, and harvesting. When they know the difference, they learn the respect, confidence, and appreciation their food should have. And they’re often the biggest champions of real, humane treatment for animals!
Give Your Children Words and Talking Points for the Outer World
Even if you decide to keep your home meat and farming projects private, the outer world will, at some point, inevitably creep in. To be clear, I am not advocating (or not) that you treat farming as if it has to be top secret. But just like us, your children are bound to come up against ignorance, attitude, and disrespect.
Help them to prepare for these kinds of encounters. Educate your children, give them words, phrases, and talking points. And let them know that the ignorance of others is on those others, not on your children. It’s theirs to deal with.
Celebrate Hard Work and Accomplishments
The experience of raising and harvesting your own meat for food, such as meat rabbits, is an opportunity to impart a solid ethic of hard work, accomplishment, and pride in a job done well. Every child should get this gift in life from some experience. It is one that will serve them well.
When children put in the work and see the reward, they are much more confident in their experience, even to the point of defending it.
There is a story I often tell people when this topic of kids raising and harvesting homegrown meats comes up. It sums up perfectly the minds of children and the credit they should be given.
After years of raising meat birds (chickens), we added ducks to the homestead. We had our processing day. Our niece, who was probably around 10 at the time, had helped. A couple of days later, they were all over for a family dinner. I roasted one of the ducks we had harvested. Eating duck was a first for all of the kids and maybe a first or second for us adults.
We all sat down to eat it. My daughter was a little leery and said she wasn’t sure if she could eat a duck. Her cousin piped up, loud and proud: “Well, I’m eating it. We worked too hard not to!”
And so, everyone partook. (And everyone loved it, by the way, and went on to eat a lot more duck breast in the years to come! In fact, good duck breast became a favorite for everyone.)
And so the point is made. Kids with a good, solid understanding of the food and life cycle, who are allowed a point of confidence in their abilities and a point of pride in providing for themselves, often embrace the chance to do so and have a well-grounded view of homegrown food.
Make Some Great Rabbit Dishes, Or Some Old Favorites With Rabbit to Enjoy the Fruits of Their Labors!
When kids love food and look forward to it, they will be more on board with growing it, processing it, and eating it. How do you get kids to eat food that no one else seems to be eating?
You normalize it. You make it tasty and enjoyable. Fortunately, with rabbit meat, that’s easy to do.
Rabbit is highly versatile. Especially in the beginning, come up with some good ways to cook it. Something that the kids like and enjoy. Something that will showcase the rabbit as just another tasty meat option.
A good way to start is to find your kids’ favorite chicken dishes and make them with rabbit instead. There are almost no chicken dishes that rabbits can’t be substituted for. I would recommend even starting with something basic, delicious, and every day, like
- Tacos made with ground rabbit meat
- Rabbit nuggets
- Spaghetti and meatballs
- Stir fry
- Pot Pie
While we never forced our kids to eat things they honestly didn’t like, they were expected to at least try foods before they decided they didn’t like them. Nor do we trick kids into eating something by telling them it’s something else (it would be very easy to tell a kid that the rabbit in a dish is chicken). To me, trickery implies there is something wrong or uncouth about what we’re eating, and rabbit is not that. It is simply not mainstream.
Trying to hide the fact that you are growing your own meat or trying to shelter kids from the practice and realities of it won’t help your kids accept the concept any easier. It casts a light of shame of some sort.
Children are capable of so much more than we often give them credit for. Allow them to be part of the process relative to what is age-appropriate for them.
But know this one thing: I have seen far more acceptance and far less squeamishness from kids raised right, who are credited and included in the process from start to finish than I’ve ever seen from adults who are so incredibly disconnected from the food they eat.
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