Carnivore Homesteading

Jay Angler wrote:

Karen Lee Mack wrote:This guy is talking about exactly what this thread is all about - how does going carnivore affect your health and affect your homesteading.

Super busy today, so I didn't have time to listen to the whole video, but right off the top of my head, I was thinking , 'what are your animals eating???' Ok, maybe they're eating some grass, but our chickens eat a commercial pellet that is mostly wheat (no corn or soya). Growing sub-straight for raising Black Soldier Flies for chickens would be awesome, if I wasn't a bit far north for them.

I don't grow rabbits, so I'm not sure what one would specifically grow for them.

One of the underlying principles of homesteading is to try to produce not just for yourselves, but for your animals also. I'm no where near that point yet, but I'm trying to head that way. In the short term, my ducks and geese adore the apples we produce and the chickens and ducks will eat every bit of kale I can keep away from the deer!

You could have a whole garden for rabbits!! Keeping in mind they are herbivores so, for example, while they can eat some carrot root, the tops are better for them.
Where I am currently, I am more successful with treehay - mulberry and willow mostly.
I plan to do a big herb garden - for seasoning and medicinal but also for the rabbits.
The best list I know of for rabbits is on another forum and I can't remember if it is okay to link to something like that.
A lot of the information on the internet is from pet rabbit folks and they are sometimes overly careful and rule out many things that
people feed meat rabbits with no issues.

A rabbit's digestion is somewhat sensitive so I always tell people, think of them as babies - you introduce a new
food slowly and often. Kits can eat whatever the mom has been eating for the most part.

And who wants to miss out on using the lovely rabbit manure for growing things?!

Karen Lee Mack wrote:

Jay Angler wrote:

Karen Lee Mack wrote:This guy is talking about exactly what this thread is all about - how does going carnivore affect your health and affect your homesteading.

Super busy today, so I didn't have time to listen to the whole video, but right off the top of my head, I was thinking , 'what are your animals eating???' Ok, maybe they're eating some grass, but our chickens eat a commercial pellet that is mostly wheat (no corn or soya). Growing sub-straight for raising Black Soldier Flies for chickens would be awesome, if I wasn't a bit far north for them.

I don't grow rabbits, so I'm not sure what one would specifically grow for them.

One of the underlying principles of homesteading is to try to produce not just for yourselves, but for your animals also. I'm no where near that point yet, but I'm trying to head that way. In the short term, my ducks and geese adore the apples we produce and the chickens and ducks will eat every bit of kale I can keep away from the deer!

You could have a whole garden for rabbits!! Keeping in mind they are herbivores so, for example, while they can eat some carrot root, the tops are better for them.
Where I am currently, I am more successful with treehay - mulberry and willow mostly.
I plan to do a big herb garden - for seasoning and medicinal but also for the rabbits.
The best list I know of for rabbits is on another forum and I can't remember if it is okay to link to something like that.
A lot of the information on the internet is from pet rabbit folks and they are sometimes overly careful and rule out many things that
people feed meat rabbits with no issues.

A rabbit's digestion is somewhat sensitive so I always tell people, think of them as babies - you introduce a new
food slowly and often. Kits can eat whatever the mom has been eating for the most part.

And who wants to miss out on using the lovely rabbit manure for growing things?!

Rabbits are probably the best meat animal for people who don't have a lot of land -- they need little if any grain, so it is possible to grow all of their food at home.  I prefer red meat (beef, goat, lamb, venison, moose, etc.), but rabbit is good.  I'm just working out how to have enough animal fat in our diets if we have to make rabbit into a high percentage of our meat supply (I'm not worried about the so-called 'rabbit starvation,' but our carnivore diet needs to have a fairly high level of fat, and rabbit is pretty lean).  My daughter can't eat eggs anymore, so our alternate source of healthy animal fat is going to have to be milk from our goats, probably.  I do have a bunch of coconut oil on hand, and coconut oil is safer than the seed oils, but I can only use small amounts of it without getting nauseated (and it gives my sister-in-law, who lives next door and we often eat together, an instant migraine).

I have a copy of the book, Beyond the Pellet, by Boyd Craven Jr. and Rick Worden.  That's a good reference to have on hand for feeding rabbits.  There's also Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps, by Claude Goodchild and Alan Thompson.  That one is older, but the information should still be useful.  (I like to have paper reference material in hand, just in case we can't access the internet at some point.)

Kathleen, I have been doing our rabbits this spring and summer to make it super easy. Now it is just me and hubby and we have a high tolerance for eating the same thing.
After processing, I cook the rabbits for 10 minutes in an old fashioned pressure cooker. While warm, they are easy to debone. I can then freeze or put it in fridge. For us,
I cook one pound or so of this in one to two sticks of butter with seasoning. I call it Browned rabbit because I cook it until at least a third is browned and kind of crispy.
It is simple and delicious. Sometimes I save out the loin meat and chunks from the leg and make Rabbit Salad with a homemade mayo (olive oil) - oh that won't work for
you, it has egg. Those are our two main ways of eating rabbit for now. I do nearly all the work at one time so it is nearly a convenience food at cooking time.

Pete is a homesteader with a Youtube channel that recently went carnivore.

In this video, he discusses the health benefits that he and his wife (and dogs) have experienced.

Unexpected benefits from carnivore diet