Geek.Farm.Life

Comment by net

June 30, 2009 @ 6:35 am

Hi Guys,

My thoughts on the production of rabbit vs chickens for meat is something like this:

Chickens raised on a small scale in the back yard or hobby farm are often free ranged or raised some other way that’s nice from both an animal rights perspective and an aesthetic one. The difference in quality of life between commercial & backyard chooks is very obvious.
It’s quite natural for the setup to be like that. It’s relatively easy to do. It’s nice and fun.*

Rabbits (as I know mostly from this podcast) on a small scale make sense in a battery-like set-up. Indoors, in cages, commercial feed, raised separately, etc. I understand that this keeps them healthy and it makes the most sense for a home set-up. If you’re raising rabbits, that’s probably the way to do it. On the other hand, it doesn’t sound too nice.

Since we’re talking about something that most people would really be doing for ‘fun,’ I think it’s a pretty big deal.

I’d love to know what you guys think of this. Am I exaggerating the nature of chook vs rabbit production? Maybe it just doesn’t apply to you, having enough geese & ducks and goats wandering around to satisfy any normal person’s needs for ‘animal niceness’.

*I’m not making any moral judgements. I’d gladly buy/eat your rabbit. It’s more about the ‘user experience.’