Processing question; what you can use the fat for?

[Rex79]

Thank you @Beekissed,

one of my does has a small dewlap and another doe had one while she was pregnant but its gone now. No rolls on hips.

I'll cut back on the BOSS and other tasty treats. Should I cut down on the amount of pellets for both the Rexes and NZ? I like to give them twigs and pine cones to help keep their teeth healthy and to stop them being bored - is this a good thing to do?

My chickens acted like they are starving too!

 

[Beekissed]

Thank you @Beekissed,

one of my does has a small dewlap and another doe had one while she was pregnant but its gone now. No rolls on hips.

I'll cut back on the BOSS and other tasty treats. Should I cut down on the amount of pellets for both the Rexes and NZ? I like to give them twigs and pine cones to help keep their teeth healthy and to stop them being bored - is this a good thing to do?

My chickens acted like they are starving too!

If they don't seem overly fat, then you are probably doing just fine as you are. The twigs and pine cones are great....can you also give them a mineral wheel for their teeth? Tends to keep them ground down but also provide some extra salt and minerals.

I used to free feed the NZ breeders, but found they overate if I did that, so that's when I switched to giving them a tuna can full each day. If yours are not overly fat and producing small litters or no litters because of that obesity, then I wouldn't change a thing.

 

[Rex79]

I give them Himalayan salt licks for the extra minerals which most of them seem to like. I found they didn't like a mineral wheel.

 

[HomesteaderWife]

There are a handful of people who render the fat of animals into tallow and make emergency candles of them. You could always try that!

 

[Nao57]

They sure are fun to watch.

Lately my rabbits have been starting to accept me a bit more. (To a point).

 

[sueand]

So I'm still getting into rabbits and new to this.

I'm watching a Youtube video on how to process them. And in the video the person is saying rabbit fat tastes disgusting, but that if you wanted to in a survival situation you could feed the entire neighborhood with it.

I'm wondering if there's a way to process rabbit fat to make it not taste disgusting, or not make food cooked in lard made out of it taste disgusting? What do you think?

I think this might be important to know...

Because... if there's a food shortage, you would need cooking oil but not be able to get it at the store. The stores would be likely overpriced, whether or not there's trouble or not.

And this is why it might be a need to figure out a way to process the rabbit fat in a way into lard that makes it not taste disgusting. (I've heard that duck fat also doesn't taste good either...)

But some lard from some animals isn't disgusting right? So doesn't that mean that people already figured out how to process some types of animals fats to not taste gross? So if it can be done for one type of meat species then its reasonable to think that some (but maybe not all) of other meat species could have a process to make them work.

When I used to raise rabbits I would render the fat and use it in making soap. Not all rabbit fat just a portion. I save all fats to either cook with or make soap .

 

[Rex79]

Wow, soap making, what a good idea.

 

[Nao57]

Wow, soap making, what a good idea.

That makes sense too! I like it also.

People can make their own soup, and while I haven't done it myself I'd seen relatives do it. I think people use borax in there somehow but I don't know the recipe.