rabbit lard

I have heard that if you were to only eat rabbit  you would die from lack of fat.
Cogs turn: not enough fat, not high quality fat etc.
Upon culling does I noticed fat, not tonnes, but enough to make me not want to toss(that means feed to dog n cats or compost with the awful). I believe it's called leaf fat in a hog, but around the kidneys. Lovely pure white.stuff.
I need a high temp oil for my cast iron cookware.
So I threw lil over a gallon of leaf in the slow cooker for five hours. Yield 1.5 pints of semisolid (60F+) lard.

I was not around to watch it render. It had a light boil going on when I got home. Low-temp render = lighter(not Nabisco lite) lard. So I jarred it up. It isn't pure white so maybe too hot maybe because I used a loose tea screen to filter it.
Next time I'll temp it to see if it was water boiling. It doesn't sizzle when I add it to the skillet so I figure it cannot be real high in water. I also use it for cooking when they ask for softened butter. I can't wait to use it for pie crusts this holiday season.
Thoroughly satisfied with the result, will modify for improvement.

I do the same. Rabbit fat makes for great soap.

Looks great! How many rabbits did it take to produce a gallon of leaf?  I'm just planning to start raising them and this seems like a great extra reason.

I believe most of the anecdotal evidence about rabbit starvation has to do with cases where rabbits were the only game available, in conditions where there was barely enough for rabbits to survive.

I would love to know what the nutritional qualities of rendered rabbit fat are. Is it lardlike (like pig fat), or more like tallow (beef fat)?

When I make oil-based herbal extractions (for those herbs that are fat-soluble) where I definitely don't want the oil above water boiling temperature, I simply add water. I use a thermometre, just to be safe, but it never surpasses 100 C by much. I separate the two in the fridge, as the fat solidifies as a discrete layer atop the water.

Is there a reason this wouldn't work with the rendering of animal fat into lard?

-CK

Bustr took 6 toal, 1 buck. 3.5-1.5 yrs. +8lb/av. My shot at a guess.

Chris put it in the fridge. Don't know if there is, or was in mine, some kind of emulsifier that didn't allow that to happen.

James
Does your rabbit lard have such a loose consistency? Or do you go with a fresh hot render for soap without a total cool?

It has that consistency raw. I render it for quite a while, and usually it gets mixed with whatever other fats are available (pig lard, olive oil, etc). I'm not sure if I answered the question, but that's what I do.

What would you use this food just like pig lard for cooking?

I haven't used rabbit fat for cooking because I don't care for the flavor, but I have a friend who uses it and likes it.