In many of my articles and videos, I mention the fact that I prefer to grow my meat rabbits out to 16 weeks before harvest. Depending on the line, the weight could vary by that age, but I target a live weight of between 7 and 8 pounds, which dresses out somewhere between 4 and 5 pounds on average.
Recently, a viewer asked why I would want my rabbits to get so big before I process them. I took this comment to be more of a question of size than of an age target.
The answer to this question is multi-fold.
First, we are a large household. I regularly feed five or six adults and sometimes more for dinner. Bigger rabbits with more meat are just better for feeding that many.
If I were to go with the more standard 5 pounds/10 to 12 weeks fryer size, I would often need two animals to make a meal.
I also enjoy having more meat to offer to my family who do not live here, just to help them moderate their grocery bills!
Even more than that, though, is the fact that larger carcasses work better for me because I tend to cut my butchered rabbits down into trim for ground meat or cubed meat (like stew meat) for other dishes. Having cuts and grinds ready to go in my freezer means the meat is easy to use, so we use more of it.
This means more frequent and efficient use of the meat, better meat supply for my household, and better financial efficiency from the rabbits, as well as reducing my grocery and meat bills.
There is also an efficiency in processing and butchering to be considered. It is the same amount of work to slaughter a 5-pound animal as it is a 7 or 8-pound rabbit. The number of cuts and the amount of evisceration is the same.
As for butchering (cutting up and packaging) carcasses, it takes the same number of cuts and the same number of swipes of the knife to debone a small versus a large rabbit. The anatomy doesn’t change, just the amount of meat on it. I feel that overall, I get more for the work that goes into them.
I also prefer the firmer texture of the older meat. When we did harvest some young fryers, I found the meat to be more mushy and tear more easily.
I’ve never found the meat from 16 week old rabbits to be tough from domestic meat rabbits. Firmer, yes, but not tough. If I had to compare it to mainstream meat, I would say it was similar to grocery store boneless chicken breast or perhaps tender pork.
I’ve addressed some of the options for when to harvest your meat rabbits and why I like 16 weeks here.
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