Yesterday I shot a rabbit that had been nawing on my new cabbage sprouts in the garden. I was skinning it, and quartered it up to feeze when a buddy of mine showed up. He told me and I quote "the reason that rabbit season is in the winter is, because during the summer the rabbits are diseased. And that you aren't supposed to eat summer rabbits."

Don't laugh, I am dead serious. So, I am a little concerned, as I have known him all my life and he has never lied to me. He is what you could call a trustworthy guy. Am I being a little too gullable? I have eaten the critter year round and nothing has happened to me yet. Is it a myth or is it true?

Most of the summer-is-worse winter-is-better 'rules' get started because of tick/flea/lice/infections/spoilage are usually worse in the warmer months. I have never heard a reliable reason otherwise...but don't rely on just my word.

I have to agree with CDH on tick, lice and flea infestation I have seen some pretty discussting summertime rabbits.

Nothing at all bad about rabbit, year round. The other faux cat.

Don't know about everywhere else, but around here, till the first heavy frost, we were taught not take wild rabbits. Lots of them have a parasitic larva, called a "wolve" (which I am sure is not a scientific name, but is what the rednecks in my world called them), normally found in the neck area, they keep a breathing hole open in the skin, pretty nasty looking. You can, once rabbit is in hand, pop them out, big ugly caterpillar looking thing; they feed off the rabbit like a leach evidently. Conventional wisdom was to discard any rabbit with a wolve.

Here in auz we shoot & eat the little devils all year round .During the summer months they do seem to be more prone to mximytosis & crlisi viris.Checking the Liver &kidneys is a sure way of checking for desise

Well, another buddy of mine today said the same thing. In a round a bout way. Although, he informed me that Rabbits in the summer months carry toxoplasmosis. In other words, you need to cook the meat really well or just let it boil off of the bone. I don't know. I'm leaning towards the 'not eating summer rabbit' deal. Ahh, probably not, I've been fine this far.

Deciple-of-Keith,

What does an infected liver or kidney look like?
Most of the time the jack rabbits I shoot don't have any thing left inside that is identifyable. Using a
243 on rabbits seldom leaves anything for eating. I have thought of doing some head shots on the cottontails. I need to know how to determine if they are safe to eat.

The liver and kidneys have white or yellow spots.I thought it was from Tuleremia.

Rabbits can actually carry tularemia (Rabbit fever) year around. In my youth I cought tularemia from cleaning a rabbit in January. I was very sick and was on antibotics for over 6 months. make sure that all the rabbits you eat are well cooked and use rubber gloves when you clean them. I promise you that you don't want tularemia.

I was forced to eat domestic rabbit on a monthly basis[I never really cared for the flavor,,,,or the way they were cooked] My co-workers begged me to bag "summer"rabbit for them,,,,which was easily done,,,,,I said ok,,,,
A week after the fact,,,,1/2 of my work force was begging to go to the doctors due to gastrointestinal things,,,,and there must have been 50 empty bottles of pepto-bismol lying about thier abode,,,,They don't even mention rabbit anymore.Clay

The best thing about rabbit is that you can use it to bait coyote.

the Arizona Game and Fish Dept had soemthing on their website a while ago that it is safe to shoot and eat rabbits all year round. They said the summer thing was a myth.

Bon appetit,,I've seen the results from the sidelines,,,,Just say no,,,Do as you care,,Clay

Yeah, I figured that I practically lived on rabbit, squirrel, and venison pretty close to year round back in my wilderness days. I never even caught as much as a sneeze from it then, and I sure am fine now. So, I think I will keep on keepin' on. Anyway, I'd rather eat some of the natural meats out there than some of that stuff they are passing off for beef nowadays anyway. At least I know I'm not gettin' pumped up with steroids everytime I eat a chicken!

quote:

Don't know about everywhere else, but around here, till the first heavy frost, we were taught not take wild rabbits. Lots of them have a parasitic larva, called a "wolve" (which I am sure is not a scientific name, but is what the rednecks in my world called them), normally found in the neck area, they keep a breathing hole open in the skin, pretty nasty looking. You can, once rabbit is in hand, pop them out, big ugly caterpillar looking thing; they feed off the rabbit like a leach evidently.

I learned the same thing as a kid and called them the same thing. I CAN tell you what the "wolves" are though. They are botfly larvae. The botfly lays some eggs on the rabbits skin and when the larvae hatches they burrow into the muscle under the skin. It can happen to all mammals, I never found out why it was more common in rabbits though I have seen one in a squirrel just one time. You can eat the rabbits year round, but in the warmer months you have a much greater chance of the larvae being on the rabbits than after the first frost and before the next spring.

Wes

Here in 'Hillbilly Heaven', these are known as warbles.
The botfly lays an egg in a scratch or cut on the skin.
I always wait until after a hard frost to take a squill.
In my younger days, I shot a squill and as it cooled,I watch the 'warble' break open and out crawled the digusting lil bastard. It broke me of killing em before a good frost.

Here in the country, we are fairly cosmopolitan about our eating habits, and I guess if you cook 'em hot and long enough you can kill any bad stuff. (Would think an Autoclave would be the tool of choice for a wolved up rabbit!)

Had a college friend once muse that we ate everything on a hog but the squeal, and he was pretty well correct. He had come home with me for an old fashioned hog killing, the way folks used to do it, every body would get together at my Grand Dads place, (he had a hoist above his scalding vat with an electric motor), it was a community thing. The guy had never seen anything like it, for those who have never been close at hand for the prep of “real†sausage casings it can be eye opening I guess. Watching the rendering of the skin, fat, and intestines not used for casings down to lard brought him to a whole new understanding of country cuisine.

One of my favorite things culinary to pull, is to make appetizers from pork tongue, soak them in a brine solution overnight, drop them in a pressure cooker for about 30 minutes, pull the skin after they cool, and set them up in the smoker for a couple of hours. Sliced across the grain, they fit just perfectly on a Ritz cracker, shot of hot sauce and a cold beer they are dynamite. The fun comes when some city slicker lady just "has" to have my recipe. Had a TCU debutant in Ft. Worth tell me that there was special place in hell for some one who would do that.

Old Elk Hunter The liver & kidneys should be the nomal red /brown colour.Normaly any sign of infection will show up as black spots of varying sizes also a lack of fat around the kidneys is a give away or the fat being yellow rather than white! I shot Rabbits for a living for many years& we were required to leave the liver & kidneys in place.This was a legal requirment of the Rabbit prossesors. That & the Rabbits had to be paired (a insecion was made in the bottom of the rear leg & the other leg was treaded through .Then the second Rabbits rear leg was pasted through the legs of the first the secured through the other leg so they were joined.Facing gut to gut.Rabbits were always sold &counted in pairs.The av shooter shot between 125&175 pair a night.For which we were paid the princely sum of $2.00 a pair. .22lr was the weapon of choice and only head shots were acceptable.Mind you as late as 1994 there was still a "trapper" working on the Nullabour Plain laying about 400 traps a night.Bloody hard yakka I'm here to tell ya