We aren’t able to have much of what we want where we live. No chickens, ducks, sheep, goats or pigs are allowed in our little farming community. Seems strange, that a town of 1300 surrounded by corn and soybean fields, we aren’t allowed a few chickens. Yet this is our realty, which makes it difficult to expand our homesteading skills.
But where there is a will, there is a way.
New Zealand Red
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American Blue
There is no ordinance saying we can’t raise rabbits.
We aren’t sure what breed(s) we’ll raise, but this year we’ll raise rabbits for food and of course we’ll plant our garden. Another nice benefit of raising rabbits is they produce some great compost material for the garden. Now, if we could just get rid of winter so we can get this party started, all would be well.
worldofweeks 
By food you don’t mean you will be eating the rabbits right?! Rabbits are my most favorite animal, I had a mini lop eared rabbit named Bailey and she was awesome. They are really smart animals too. She was an indoor rabbit so she was litter box trained.
Sorry, but I do mean we’ll be eating rabbit. But don’t worry, we won’t be raising and eating any mini lop eared rabbits. Just bigger rabbits that are typically raised for meat.
Rabbits were a very popular food source in America until quite recently. The reason they stopped being raised for food was because chickens could handle extreme confinement, diets of litterally poop and trash and drugs to keep them alive through all this.
The only reason you grew up with a pet bunny and fried chicken instead of a pet bunny and fried rabbit is so factory farms could exist. 😦
Rabbit is still a popular meat, especially in France, and has lower fat than chicken and higher protein too. They eat a very sustainable diet, produce one of the few sustainable warm weather clothing sources (fur), and tastes delicious. You can still love your lop and love rabbit stew! I have a pet lop indoors and 10 meat breeding rabbits in the garage that I raise and process kits from myself.
Meat or pet is just a state of mind!
Very well put! What animals you choose to eat vs what animals you choose as pets is a state of mind. Of course it’s also a matter of taste. Very few will eat something they just don’t like the taste of.
yeah my state of mind is that rabbits are more a pet than food. They eat dogs in many parts of Asia but I’m not going to do it! But to each his own. Just know Debbie that I will not eat any rabbit stew! LOL! Or any other food with rabbit in it for that matter! Of course I’m not sure I could raise any animal knowing that someday it would be on my plate. I’d rather not know how cute it was before I ate it.
I completely understand your desire to not know the animals you are eating. I have lived most of my life there. As I started learning how the meat industry works, I could no longer stay in that place. I guess you could say I had an awakening and my state of mind has changed.
I want to know what is and is not in the food I’m eating. I want my animals to be provided a natural diet. I want them to have room to roam. I want them to have a really good life. In return I want them to help feed my family.
I totally understand what you are saying Debbie and I wish I could get to that point with my meat. We are looking into buying our meat fresh from a butcher where the animals would be grass fed and humanely treated and slaughtered.
That’s awesome and a great alternative for those who can’t grow their own food.
Good for you!
We have to start somewhere and this is a good place for us to start.