Hands on experience keeping rabbits?

[Moony]

Myxomatosis can't affect humans, though it'd make your rabbit dinner look really unappetizing. Strictly speaking you shouldn't eat anything that you find dead or looks diseased, it depends how bad the situation is, but 'mixy' won't kill you.

Ducks can make a real mess of your land (especially in wet/wintry weather) and probably don't convert food / breed as well as rabbits (especially if they don't sit on their own eggs and require a surrogate or mechanical brooder). That being said, the ongoing production of eggs is a nice bonus as rabbits don't give you anything until you butcher them. Personally I'm aiming to go for chickens > quails > rabbits, in that order, with ducks and geese a bit more work involved.

[badgersden]

hi my point was if you were taking them out of the wild be careful they have not got mixy or it will spread to healthy rabbits,any animal with a disease is not worth eating they are ill under nourished and not much meat on them,personally i would not eat a rabbit with mixy i would rather forage for other foods,
just google a image with mixy if you have not seen one in the wild

[jansman]

Domestic rabbits can contract
Myxy-it only takes a fox near the pens.It is carried by fleas,and foxes will eat myxied rabbits. The fleas hop on board'til Reynard finds a suitable host. It is why it is a good idea to immunise bunnies. Not just Myxy, but VHD-nasty disease that causes rabbits to bleed internally and drown.

[Brambles]

This was my go to bible for keeping chickens and rabbits when I had the space. It's a WW2 publication, but is just as relevant today.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... runch.html

HTH

[jansman]

It is a very good book. I have it too. Good information for when we are really hard -up.