A6 BAKER CITY HERALD • THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2022
LOCAL
Rabbits
Continued from A1
He now produces over 100
meat rabbits per year.
Tending to the rabbits isn’t
difficult or time consuming,
Chase said. He gives them
feed and water in the morning
and then nestles an ice pack
next to their fur on hot days.
They only require the nutri-
ents from feed, in the form
of small pellets, and hay —
which helps them digest their
own hair, which they consume
during grooming.
“They get everything they
need from the pellets,” Chase
said.
Plus, they don’t require
much feed relative to some
other livestock animals. Stud-
ies have shown that rabbits
have a high feed efficiency
— how much feed they con-
sume per pound of meat they
produce. Rabbits, similar to
chickens, only require about
three pounds of feed for every
pound of meat, while cows
usually require more than
double that amount.
This makes rabbits “a good
choice for someone trying
to be sustainable,” said Jessie
Hadfield, assistant professor
and animal science specialist
at the Utah State University
Extension Service.
Part of that efficiency is
because they actually recy-
cle their food by eating their
cecotrope — a non-fecal ex-
crement rabbits produce after
eating, which helps them har-
vest all the possible nutrients
from the feed.
Chase said he supplies his
baby rabbits with as much
feed as they can eat. They
grow quickly, another benefit
to producers.
Finding just how quickly is
what won Chase first prize in
the state.
He wanted to gauge the op-
timal butchering age for rab-
bits to maximize his profits
and reduce the feed bill.
He kept track of weight and
feed intake for rabbits between
eight and 12 weeks old. He
found that after 10 weeks, their
weight gain dropped substan-
tially, but they still consumed
the same amount of food.
“They don’t gain all that
much per week after that,”
Chase said.
At 10 weeks old, his rabbits
range from 4½ to 5½ pounds
— a size often referred to as
“fryers.” According to the Ore-
gon State University Extension
Service, “fryers are most de-
sirable because of their tender
meat and more desirable color.”
Ten weeks old, Chase
found, is the sweet spot of size
and quality.
“We’ll butcher them then,
because between eight weeks,
10 weeks and 12 weeks, the
toughness of the meat after
it’s cooked is way different,”
Chase said.
He said that at 12 weeks, the
meat is much tougher than at
10 weeks, which is why older
rabbits are referred to as “stew-
ers” — they’re best cooked in
a stew.
While this toughness might
turn some people away from
the meat, Chase said he be-
lieves it’s the “healthiest meat
in the world.”
Mostly, that’s because it’s
extremely low in fat and cho-
lesterol, according to Hadfield.
She said rabbit meat contains
healthy vitamins, like iron,
that can’t be found in plants.
And it’s a clean product,
Chase explained. He hasn’t
had a rabbit get a disease,
mostly because the pens are
up off the ground and they
don’t use antibiotics. He
said rabbit meat is similar to
chicken.
The list of benefits to raising
and eating rabbits is long, ac-
cording to Chase. But getting
that meat to the plates of oth-
ers is a different story.
An obstacle to hop over
When it comes to butch-
ering, Tyler Myatt, who’s 11,
takes over.
He said there are four cuts
in a rabbit: back legs, front
legs, the saddle and the loin.
“The best cut is the loin, but
the legs have the most meat,”
Tyler said.
Tyler said his favorite dish
is rabbit enchiladas, while the
boys’ mother, Jill, likes rabbit
with lemon parmesan pasta.
While they can eat their
own rabbits for dinner, pro-
cessing and selling the rabbits
themselves on their own prop-
erty would be illegal. Accord-
ing to state law, rabbits for sale
must be processed by a facility
licensed specifically for pro-
cessing rabbits.
That’s not the case for other
livestock animals, like chick-
ens. Chicken farmers can pro-
cess and sell up to 1,000 birds
Photos by Clayton Franke/Baker City Herald
The Myatt brothers use frozen bottles to keep their rabbits cool on hot summer days.
Tyler Myatt, 11, with some of the rabbits he and his older brother,
Chase, are raising.
themselves without a license,
according to the Oregon De-
partment of Agriculture’s
(ODA) farm-direct poultry li-
cense exemption law.
“Somehow, a long time ago,
they decided ‘you can’t do that
with rabbits,’ ” Jill said.
This wouldn’t be a problem
if rabbit processing facilities
were common. But the only
facility in Eastern Oregon,
Hawkins Sisters Ranch, is 90
miles away in Wallowa. Chase
said the extra shipping costs,
along with high feed prices,
has increased his prices.
According to USDA census
data from 2017, farms in Or-
egon sold almost 16.5 million
chickens that year but only
45,000 rabbits.
Chase sells the meat for
$8.50 a pound. That’s still a
better price than some grocery
stores, the few that do carry
rabbit, like the Albertsons in
Boise, where Chase said his fa-
ther, Nick, saw the meat going
for $19 a pound.
As of 2020 there were 12
facilities licensed for rabbit
processing in Oregon. Rais-
ing — and therefore, eating —
rabbits in Eastern Oregon is
somewhat inaccessible.
But the Myatts are taking
action to change that fact, at
least on a small scale, for now.
On the Myatts’ property,
near the rabbit shed, is a larger
skeleton of a barn. Part of this
barn, once completed, will be
an ODA-licensed rabbit pro-
cessing facility.
Jill said they have every-
thing lined up to receive the
license, pending inspection of
their facility, which they plan
to open next year. Once the fa-
cility is completed they won’t
have to splurge on shipping
rabbits north. The rabbits will
be both raised and butchered
on the farm.
“Once we do that, our price
will go way down,” Chase said.
Future research
Chase Myatt looks at Big
Puff, a New Zealand-Califor-
nia mixed breed, and won-
ders: Do Californian rabbits
have more meat than New
Zealand rabbits?
He has a sneaking suspicion
that New Zealand rabbits, de-
spite their large size and pop-
ularity as a meat rabbit breed,
might actually yield less meat
than Califonians because of
their huge bones.
“Big Puff, she’s half New
Zealand, and she’s way big-
ger than everybody else, but
there’s not much meat on
her, she’s a big boned rabbit,”
Chase says.
It’s one of many ideas that
Chase has for future research.
Luckily, he has plenty of time
to do it. And it’s much needed.
Jacob Hadfield, an assis-
tant professor of agriculture
at the Utah State University
Extension Service, provides
educational materials for peo-
ple interested in raising meat
Rabbit meat is low in fat and cholesterol.
rabbits. Hadfield, who is mar-
ried to Jessie Hadfield, said
the “limited” research on meat
rabbits is one obstacle he faces.
“Sometimes it’s hard to an-
swer those just because we
don’t have research to back it,”
he said.
Chase said he ran into the
same problem when research-
ing his award-winning FFA
project.
But all three said they think
interest in producing rabbit
meat is growing.
“I think in 5 or 10 years
we’ll for sure start to see
(more) rabbit in grocery
stores,” Jessie Hadfield said.
Chase said he only knows of
a few other rabbit producers in
Eastern Oregon, but interest
has grown in the last few years.
“During the start of COVID
there were so many people
who wanted to get into rabbit
raising,” Chase said. “There’s
still a much higher interest in
it now than there was three
years ago.”
To buy rabbit meat from
Chase, email the Feather Goat
Farm at Feathergoatfarm@
gmail.com or contact them
on Facebook or Instagram @
feathergoatfarm.
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