We have 8 egg laying chickens and I've been wanting to add a protein source I've been between rabbits and fish because both can be done in my backyard, personally I prefer rabbits but my wife has the fluffy freak out factor.
I find that chickens and rabbits complement each other nicely. We prefer rabbit meat. However, chickens do produce eggs and help to clean out under the rabbit cages until I need the manure for composting.
I think these were both well-supported videos, and your experience is clear. The problem some people have is that not everything is right for them, and they are BOTH GOOD options vs the status quo. I believe you said something to that effect in the rabbit video. I was told something at one of my early jobs that stuck with me: "Doesn't matter if you're picking stocks, investing in businesses, evaluating products, or hiring your next employee. Anyone can tell best from worst, most people can tell good from bad, but you'll earn your money picking best from second-best." I think that's the skill you've used to deliver these videos. Good work.
Hey there, I just want to say you were perfectly clear in your first video about meat rabbits, shame on whoever had anything to say for not watching it from the beginning before they spoke, or not using their "listening ears"like I used to tell my children. You gave a fair shake to both chickens and rabbits, and stated your fondness to the chicken from both your past and your present status. People like to create drama, even with something you're trying to be helpful with. I say JOB WELL DONE with this video.
Egg layer hens are free-ranging on my 1/2 acre. I’m still learning how useful they are in my gardens. They have plenty of hiding spots during the day sand are in a predator-proof hen house and enclosure at night. The hens are my pets! My meat rabbits are caged and hung in the chicken enclosure. 💯% agree with your comment that both hens and bunnies make a good team. Dang…..those bunnies really ARE cute! Another well-done video, Sir! 👍🏻
I’m also in the suburbs of Boston! In 2 acre zoning but horses are more accepted than chickens or rabbits even though I feel 2 acres is not enough for the horses and one owner “walks” her horse up our street… I clean up after my 3 hens EVERY day so neighbors can’t complain of smell or rats (the horses at the end of the street are another story)… As I said before, we will get a larger shed this spring and incorporate rabbits-first for manure and meat should we need (or get the courage to butcher)
I used to get traditional dual purpose Rhode Island Reds from a hatchery in PA. Cockerels would reach 5 pounds in 11-12 weeks on grain with 4 hours of free ranging per day. The pullets needed about 2 months longer than the production strains to mature and start laying. That hatchery has gone out of business and I haven't found another one selling birds like that.
@@matthew-ww6vs Their website looks interesting. The one reason I wouldn't order from them is shipping time and distance. USPS performance is not what it was until a few years ago. I've heard too many stories about people receiving dead chicks in the mail because the Post Office took too long, all in the last two years. I know one farmer who drove from Maine to Ohio to pick up 500 turkey poults directly from the hatchery after two mail shipments arrived with 95% dead.
Just got my first pair of Californian rabbits here in the Philippines. Need to work on cages yet, but they were a surprise. Looking forward to expanding my rabbitry to 6 does, and 2 bucks. Love both laying hens and rabbits, but no sense raising meat birds here as meat is so readily available and cheap. Will raise orpingtons or barred rocks once I find a flock. Great eggs, high production, tough, and very calm birds. No harm in both, as they say to each their own.
Yea I’m not a fan of cornish cross . But the red rangers tho are fantastic birds. They don’t just lay around under weight and eat like cornish cross do.I got the rangers before I’ll get them again. Totally good with those birds and they have a good eye appeal for the farm
I really enjoy your videos and will be using them as a source when we add meat rabbits next year. Re meat chickens, my wife and I have raised two batches of Cornish Cross since moving to rural SW Ohio two years ago. This year we butchered 21, and the largest ones were well over 9 lbs 2 days under 8 weeks. We sold 5 to a friend at $4/lb, bringing our total cost to $1.17/lb. So, I have to disagree with your point about meat chickens not being good on a small scale…unless by small scale you meant much smaller than what we’re doing. Thanks for the videos! Great stuff!
There was more detail provided in the other video, but basically it had to do with (1) reliance on industrial farming for obtaining birds and feed (you're not really 'insulating' yourself from that industrial model), abd (2) differences in how healthy or self-reliant those birds are, the reality that a lot of their survival traits (everything from brooding to foraging) have been bred out of them, and the fact that this makes them much less sustainable and much more intensive to care for. There might have been more points given, but those were the two broad takeaways I remember. I hope I haven't misstated or overstated them. But if you have time, the earlier video did a *lot* more to substantiate that claim.
@@habituscraeft You are absolutely correct! I had forgotten he made that point about the reliance on industrial farming. There’s really no way for me to reproduce the Cornish Cross on my own. I’ll still probably do a batch every year…at least for the foreseeable future. They do taste great, and it’s a great way to fill the freezer. But, I also plan to eventually replace all of my egg layers with Salmon Faverolle hens, and breed them exclusively. We already have the rooster, and he’s amazing. Thanks for the reply!
That's a very good point! I should have clarified what I meant by scale. Once you start selling you begin to get into more farming rather than homesteading/self reliance. In a farming context, the conrish cross makes a TON of sense. So if you can sell the meat that does change the equation. If you wanted to do it "legally" that would require a bigger investment and you really would be farming. I guess I should have talked about your situation were you are selling some to friends under the table to offset the cost, but not so many that you're farming at scale.
@@westmeadowrabbits excellent clarification, but there is still that point of not being as self reliant as you’d think. I mean, I have to go buy the CC chicks from a store, but if I have a great dual purpose bird, I would still be able to have a nice fried chicken or some chicken and dumplings from time to time without having to buy chicks. ☺️
I've had a house flock of layers now coming on six years. I raised flocks of meat birds (CornishX) twice for my family and a few friends, turkeys as well. If I raise meat birds this year, I'll be going with as large a heritage bird as I can find - both chickens and turkeys. Cornish hens are just too fragile and I'm doing everything I can to be independent of the commercial food chain as I can. Rabbits are starting to look like a good addition to my homestead.
That was pretty much the whole point of my other video! If you just want easy meat for self reliance, chickens aren't really worth it. Of course if you want eggs you need chickens, and the meat is a nice bonus.
i'm doing buff orpingtons i plan to hatch eggs they lay and cull excess roosters in the future for meat, plus have too many eggs :D, i love my chickens tho they're cute.
I have been able to get very good dual purpose chickens as an f1 cross of leghorn and Langshan's it is like a Breese but is 30% bigger and lays more than a leghorn and is a winter layer this does not breed true but is a much better cross in my opinion than the Cornish Rock cross and it's fairly easy to maintain those 2 lines most of the f2 hybrids are very similar to the Breese only slightly worse.
@@westmeadowrabbits I want to but I don't have any of the original Langshan chickens, actually Asian black by tractor supply but conforms to the Langshan standard almost perfectly except feathery feet, I am trying to breed back but got unlucky with the birds I kept and the ones I bought but I do have a bunch of the F2 crosses and most are like a Bresse, leghorn, of australorp, very little consistency, I plan to breed from Cornish, cochins, and my stock to get a similar bird, and use cream legbar instead of leghorn
I actually like the taste of rabbit more than chicken. An 8-12 week old fryer just tastes cleaner than a chicken. To me they taste a lot alike, but the rabbit just tastes like chicken, but the best chicken you will ever taste. That said, rabbit flavor is changed a lot by diet, age and even sex. Adult male rabbits - especially if they are fed a lot of forage - get a strong flavor that isn't pleasant. Chickens just get tough when they get old and stewing can fix it. I don't think I can tell the difference in taste between hens and roosters. You can finish some birds like turkeys with fruit to make them taste better, but I haven't noticed it works with chickens - chickens just taste like chicken (unless you are talking Corish crosses which taste like chicken mixed with lard). Rabbits are completely different, what they eat really matters. I hunt arctic hares because they are a real delicacy. They mostly eat willow and spruce in winter (you only hunt them in winter because of parasite loads in the summer). I found with my meat rabbits that supplementing willow and spruce "seasoned" the meat and improved the flavor making it taste more like beef or venison (both of which I like more than chicken).
Agreed! I feed adult male culls to my god because of the strong taste. It seems like most male animals have very strong tastes. It's standard practice to castrate hogs and cattle for this reason. But like you said if you are eating fryers there's not much of a difference between the sexes.
@@westmeadowrabbits Thanks for the reply, great channel! I wonder if castrating males a month or so before eating them would make the meat quality better of if the gross is just there to stay. (Still with rabbits, it probably isn't even worth it is the anatomy doesn't may for easy castration as with hogs or cattle.)
@@gjmottetThanks! Yea it's not worth it, they would likely die from the trauma anyways. As long as they are processed young you usually won't notice any difference in taste.
Personally, I have similar issues with them as quail. They are almost to small to be worth the trouble. The biggest issue is that they aren't nearly as tough as rabbits or chickens, which really limits where you can raise them.
We have chickens and have found out that they are dirtier, and they smell way worse than rabbits! We are at this point wanting to get rid of all the chickens and do what you have done and turn the hen house into a rabbit shed with grow out pens in the run and breeders in the house.
My wife said that as a kid her family switched from rabbits to meat chickens. She said that chickens are just easier and rabbits need cages and more daily work.
I think it really depends on your setup. I see a lot of really bad ones out there. My rabbits take less than 15 minutes a day for over 20 breeding adults.
@@westmeadowrabbits My wife grew up on the side of a mountain with neighbors a quarter mile away, so the chickens were just left to fend for themselves other than water food once a day. The chickens just free ranged.
We have 8 egg laying chickens and I've been wanting to add a protein source I've been between rabbits and fish because both can be done in my backyard, personally I prefer rabbits but my wife has the fluffy freak out factor.
Fish is definitely much more infrastructure intensive, more expensive, and less resilient. But if your wife wants it that may be your only choice.
I find that chickens and rabbits complement each other nicely. We prefer rabbit meat. However, chickens do produce eggs and help to clean out under the rabbit cages until I need the manure for composting.
I think these were both well-supported videos, and your experience is clear. The problem some people have is that not everything is right for them, and they are BOTH GOOD options vs the status quo. I believe you said something to that effect in the rabbit video.
I was told something at one of my early jobs that stuck with me: "Doesn't matter if you're picking stocks, investing in businesses, evaluating products, or hiring your next employee. Anyone can tell best from worst, most people can tell good from bad, but you'll earn your money picking best from second-best." I think that's the skill you've used to deliver these videos. Good work.
Agreed! Thank you!
Hey there, I just want to say you were perfectly clear in your first video about meat rabbits, shame on whoever had anything to say for not watching it from the beginning before they spoke, or not using their "listening ears"like I used to tell my children. You gave a fair shake to both chickens and rabbits, and stated your fondness to the chicken from both your past and your present status. People like to create drama, even with something you're trying to be helpful with. I say JOB WELL DONE with this video.
Thank you! I suspect a lot of the craziest comments where from people who didn't actually watch the video.
Egg layer hens are free-ranging on my 1/2 acre. I’m still learning how useful they are in my gardens. They have plenty of hiding spots during the day sand are in a predator-proof hen house and enclosure at night. The hens are my pets! My meat rabbits are caged and hung in the chicken enclosure. 💯% agree with your comment that both hens and bunnies make a good team. Dang…..those bunnies really ARE cute! Another well-done video, Sir! 👍🏻
That is awesome! Thanks!
I think im going to just do heritage breeds for my own organic eggs, and rabbits for meat and to make a nice rabbit blanket
I’m also in the suburbs of Boston! In 2 acre zoning but horses are more accepted than chickens or rabbits even though I feel 2 acres is not enough for the horses and one owner “walks” her horse up our street… I clean up after my 3 hens EVERY day so neighbors can’t complain of smell or rats (the horses at the end of the street are another story)… As I said before, we will get a larger shed this spring and incorporate rabbits-first for manure and meat should we need (or get the courage to butcher)
Sounds about right. Contact me if you need some rabbits!
I used to get traditional dual purpose Rhode Island Reds from a hatchery in PA. Cockerels would reach 5 pounds in 11-12 weeks on grain with 4 hours of free ranging per day. The pullets needed about 2 months longer than the production strains to mature and start laying. That hatchery has gone out of business and I haven't found another one selling birds like that.
Try sand hill preservation center they seem to focus there breeds on what the original purpose of whatever breed they have was created for
@@matthew-ww6vs Their website looks interesting. The one reason I wouldn't order from them is shipping time and distance. USPS performance is not what it was until a few years ago. I've heard too many stories about people receiving dead chicks in the mail because the Post Office took too long, all in the last two years. I know one farmer who drove from Maine to Ohio to pick up 500 turkey poults directly from the hatchery after two mail shipments arrived with 95% dead.
Just got my first pair of Californian rabbits here in the Philippines. Need to work on cages yet, but they were a surprise. Looking forward to expanding my rabbitry to 6 does, and 2 bucks. Love both laying hens and rabbits, but no sense raising meat birds here as meat is so readily available and cheap. Will raise orpingtons or barred rocks once I find a flock. Great eggs, high production, tough, and very calm birds. No harm in both, as they say to each their own.
Your climate is also a lot warmer than ours so chickens are much easier!
Yea I’m not a fan of cornish cross . But the red rangers tho are fantastic birds. They don’t just lay around under weight and eat like cornish cross do.I got the rangers before I’ll get them again. Totally good with those birds and they have a good eye appeal for the farm
I really enjoy your videos and will be using them as a source when we add meat rabbits next year. Re meat chickens, my wife and I have raised two batches of Cornish Cross since moving to rural SW Ohio two years ago. This year we butchered 21, and the largest ones were well over 9 lbs 2 days under 8 weeks. We sold 5 to a friend at $4/lb, bringing our total cost to $1.17/lb. So, I have to disagree with your point about meat chickens not being good on a small scale…unless by small scale you meant much smaller than what we’re doing.
Thanks for the videos! Great stuff!
There was more detail provided in the other video, but basically it had to do with (1) reliance on industrial farming for obtaining birds and feed (you're not really 'insulating' yourself from that industrial model), abd (2) differences in how healthy or self-reliant those birds are, the reality that a lot of their survival traits (everything from brooding to foraging) have been bred out of them, and the fact that this makes them much less sustainable and much more intensive to care for.
There might have been more points given, but those were the two broad takeaways I remember. I hope I haven't misstated or overstated them. But if you have time, the earlier video did a *lot* more to substantiate that claim.
@@habituscraeft You are absolutely correct! I had forgotten he made that point about the reliance on industrial farming. There’s really no way for me to reproduce the Cornish Cross on my own. I’ll still probably do a batch every year…at least for the foreseeable future. They do taste great, and it’s a great way to fill the freezer. But, I also plan to eventually replace all of my egg layers with Salmon Faverolle hens, and breed them exclusively. We already have the rooster, and he’s amazing. Thanks for the reply!
That's a very good point! I should have clarified what I meant by scale. Once you start selling you begin to get into more farming rather than homesteading/self reliance. In a farming context, the conrish cross makes a TON of sense.
So if you can sell the meat that does change the equation. If you wanted to do it "legally" that would require a bigger investment and you really would be farming.
I guess I should have talked about your situation were you are selling some to friends under the table to offset the cost, but not so many that you're farming at scale.
@@westmeadowrabbits excellent clarification, but there is still that point of not being as self reliant as you’d think. I mean, I have to go buy the CC chicks from a store, but if I have a great dual purpose bird, I would still be able to have a nice fried chicken or some chicken and dumplings from time to time without having to buy chicks. ☺️
@@MadRiverHomestead Very true! It's all a question of what tradeoffs people are willing to make.
Greetings from Croatia 🇭🇷
I've had a house flock of layers now coming on six years. I raised flocks of meat birds (CornishX) twice for my family and a few friends, turkeys as well. If I raise meat birds this year, I'll be going with as large a heritage bird as I can find - both chickens and turkeys. Cornish hens are just too fragile and I'm doing everything I can to be independent of the commercial food chain as I can. Rabbits are starting to look like a good addition to my homestead.
That was pretty much the whole point of my other video! If you just want easy meat for self reliance, chickens aren't really worth it. Of course if you want eggs you need chickens, and the meat is a nice bonus.
Fantastic video
Thanks!
I prefer rabbit lot easier to clean.
i'm doing buff orpingtons i plan to hatch eggs they lay and cull excess roosters in the future for meat, plus have too many eggs :D, i love my chickens tho they're cute.
Culling is always tough!
Nice thanks
I have been able to get very good dual purpose chickens as an f1 cross of leghorn and Langshan's it is like a Breese but is 30% bigger and lays more than a leghorn and is a winter layer this does not breed true but is a much better cross in my opinion than the Cornish Rock cross and it's fairly easy to maintain those 2 lines most of the f2 hybrids are very similar to the Breese only slightly worse.
That's pretty cool! Have you considered selling them?
@@westmeadowrabbits I want to but I don't have any of the original Langshan chickens, actually Asian black by tractor supply but conforms to the Langshan standard almost perfectly except feathery feet, I am trying to breed back but got unlucky with the birds I kept and the ones I bought but I do have a bunch of the F2 crosses and most are like a Bresse, leghorn, of australorp, very little consistency, I plan to breed from Cornish, cochins, and my stock to get a similar bird, and use cream legbar instead of leghorn
I actually like the taste of rabbit more than chicken. An 8-12 week old fryer just tastes cleaner than a chicken. To me they taste a lot alike, but the rabbit just tastes like chicken, but the best chicken you will ever taste. That said, rabbit flavor is changed a lot by diet, age and even sex. Adult male rabbits - especially if they are fed a lot of forage - get a strong flavor that isn't pleasant. Chickens just get tough when they get old and stewing can fix it. I don't think I can tell the difference in taste between hens and roosters. You can finish some birds like turkeys with fruit to make them taste better, but I haven't noticed it works with chickens - chickens just taste like chicken (unless you are talking Corish crosses which taste like chicken mixed with lard). Rabbits are completely different, what they eat really matters. I hunt arctic hares because they are a real delicacy. They mostly eat willow and spruce in winter (you only hunt them in winter because of parasite loads in the summer). I found with my meat rabbits that supplementing willow and spruce "seasoned" the meat and improved the flavor making it taste more like beef or venison (both of which I like more than chicken).
Agreed! I feed adult male culls to my god because of the strong taste. It seems like most male animals have very strong tastes. It's standard practice to castrate hogs and cattle for this reason. But like you said if you are eating fryers there's not much of a difference between the sexes.
@@westmeadowrabbits Thanks for the reply, great channel! I wonder if castrating males a month or so before eating them would make the meat quality better of if the gross is just there to stay. (Still with rabbits, it probably isn't even worth it is the anatomy doesn't may for easy castration as with hogs or cattle.)
@@gjmottetThanks! Yea it's not worth it, they would likely die from the trauma anyways. As long as they are processed young you usually won't notice any difference in taste.
What about guinea pigs? They have more fat, i do think having egg laying chicken and rabbits for meat is the best combo
Personally, I have similar issues with them as quail. They are almost to small to be worth the trouble. The biggest issue is that they aren't nearly as tough as rabbits or chickens, which really limits where you can raise them.
Can you make a video on how you use rabbit meat in recipes?
Eventually I will!
We have chickens and have found out that they are dirtier, and they smell way worse than rabbits! We are at this point wanting to get rid of all the chickens and do what you have done and turn the hen house into a rabbit shed with grow out pens in the run and breeders in the house.
WAIT a minute Rabbits🐇don't lay EGGS🥚, I saw those "CADBURY" chocolate commercials😂
I know, it's shocking right!
Awsome bud,The fat is in the skin of the rabbit.👍👍👍👍
Very true!
My wife said that as a kid her family switched from rabbits to meat chickens. She said that chickens are just easier and rabbits need cages and more daily work.
I think it really depends on your setup. I see a lot of really bad ones out there. My rabbits take less than 15 minutes a day for over 20 breeding adults.
@@westmeadowrabbits My wife grew up on the side of a mountain with neighbors a quarter mile away, so the chickens were just left to fend for themselves other than water food once a day. The chickens just free ranged.
What are the fatter rabbits? You said rabbits are leaner, but why not have fat ones?
You could, the main issue with fat rabbits is that they don't breed as well.