meat

Rabbit and Feeding

All members of the Leporidae family, such as rabbits and hares, are used for food for their meat; they are part of the European, Chinese, South American and sometimes Middle Eastern diet. According to some estimates, annual world production of rabbit meat amounts to around 200 million tons.

The rabbit is sold fresh in butchers and markets, while it can be found frozen in large businesses. In some places we continue to sell fresh meat in a traditional way, such as, for example, in agricultural and rural markets. Here, rabbits expose dead, skinned and hung, often alongside pheasants and other game and / or poultry prey. The countries in which the consumption of rabbit meat is higher are: Malta (8.89 kg per inhabitant), Italy (5.71 kg per inhabitant), Cyprus (4.37 kg per inhabitant), France (2.76 kg per inhabitant), Belgium (2.73 kg per inhabitant), Spain (2.61 kg per inhabitant) and Portugal (1.94 kg per inhabitant).

At one time, rabbit meat was also widely marketed in Sydney, Australia, to the point that a rugby team was called "South Sydney Rabbitohs". However, since these were pests and potentially harmful animals, attempts were made to cut down those in the wild by spreading the myxomatosis virus; obviously, following the epidemic, rabbit meat became obsolete.

The rabbit is also commonly used in the Moroccan cuisine, for which the meat is cooked in a tajine with the addition of raisins and toasted almonds just before serving.

In China, rabbit meat is particularly popular in Sichuan food culture: among the popular dishes of the area emerge: rabbit stews, diced spicy rabbit, rabbit barbecue and spicy rabbit heads (vaguely similar to duck necks) ). In contrast, rabbit meat is relatively unpopular in the Asian regions of the Pacific Ocean.

Rabbits can be grown in captivity or hunted. In the most efficient farming systems, rabbits can transform 20% of the proteins they eat into edible meat, compared to 22-23% of broilers, 16-18% of pigs and 8-12% of beef. In terms of energy and feed costs, rabbit meat is much cheaper than beef (see also: cricket flour). In hunting practice, firearms, traps, crossbows and bows are generally used. Breeding is called cunicoltura; the suppression occurs mainly with a sharp blow behind the neck (from here, the Anglo-Saxon term "rabbit punch" or some Italian dialectal terminologies such as "cunile mazza"). The rabbit can also be killed by sticking.

The meat can be cooked in most ways the chicken is prepared. The famous chef Mark Bittman claims that the taste of the domestic chicken and rabbit is comparable to "white canvases on which any flavor can be structured".

On average, rabbit meat is leaner than beef, pork and chicken (not on the chest, but on average).

The rabbit is generally divided into three formats; the first is the "Fryer" (from frying). It is a young rabbit, between 2.0 and 2.3 kilograms, up to 9 weeks of age which has a tender and thin-fiber flesh. The second is the "Roaster" (from roast). Usually, it is over 2.3 kilograms and reaches 8 months of life, with a more fibrous and less tender pulp than the Fryer. Then there are the offal, which include the liver and the heart, while the kidneys are generally left attached to the body (as extra peritoneal organs).

One of the most common breeding rabbit breeds for meat is the New Zealand white rabbit.

The countries producing rabbit meat are mainly: China, Russia, Italy, France and Spain (100, 000 tons or more per year).