WHILE MOST PEOPLE don’t cook rabbit at home, it is frequently found on the menus of high-end restaurants. As a boy, I went hunting rabbits with my buddies every fall, and we came home with plenty. They were gamier than domestic rabbits, but delicious. We had to check them carefully for parasites, but no one to my knowledge ever got sick from eating wild cottontails.
Most store-bought rabbits today are raised by specialty growers using specific meat breeds. To get the organic seal, they can’t be raised in permanent cages; they must be allowed the company of other animals; they must get a minimum of eight hours of daylight each day; if given access to pasture each rabbit must have five square meters of room; breeding does (moms) must not have more than six litters per year (they breed like rabbits); and the kits (babies) must be allowed at least thirty-five days with their mothers before being weaned.
Rabbit ranchers will often use the manure as fodder for red wiggler worms. The resulting worm-enriched castings are a fabulously nutrient-rich fertilizer for crops. Rabbit manure, like the meat itself, is rich in zinc.
Buck rabbits are either screamers or fainters. That is, after they mate with a doe, they either scream or faint. Just a point of interest.
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