Using the meat in our orchards

Hi there,

Just joined. Was wondering if you could tell me how to creat a new post.

Something used my most recent meat capture before I got a chance to! Anyone need an unlucky rabbits foot?

You have to explain this one, Derek! You said something used your recent meat capture…do you mean something stole the rest of that rabbit out of your trap? Also, I see some wire in that photo tied to what may be an anchor. Did you catch that rabbit with a wire snare? I’ve always seen wire snares in survival videos and thought it would be almost impossible to actually catch a rabbit with a snare though I know people do it.

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Last week they had the national squirrel cook of in Bentenville, headquarters of Walmart, it is a big doing, my two neighbors went.
Neatless to say, I do not see any squirrels around my property, go figure.

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yeah something stole the rabbit from my snare! maybe a neighbor’s cat? I’ve caught several rabbits in snaresnares recently, not hard once u get it figured out.

I just cooked a raccoon, using half to make carbonnade (with venison shanks added too) and half in a rosemary and wine recipe I’ve used for rabbit and squirrel before. Both came out great, here is the rosemary/wine recipe, which has been bomb-proof:

https://shadowcook.com/2007/12/08/marcellas-rabbit-with-rosemary-and-white-wine/

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Good for you. I think of myself as an adventurous eater and I’d certainly try racoon, but I never have. How did it taste?

Most folks I talk to seem to think that city dwelling critters are dirty, and wouldn’t be good to eat. We have so many rabbits here, you wouldn’t believe it. Squirrels are a problem as well. The neighborhood cats are all too fat to catch them.

I purchased a live trap after my frustration level hit peak, after losing my umpteenth edible to one of the little devil rabbits. Anyways- my question is really this- do you all think urban wabbits are too dirty to eat? I see them graze on clover, and of course the bark of my cherry trees, but I haven’t seen them devouring garbage or anything. Is there any reason to think they are contaminated, just because they are city bunnies? My husband said he’d be surprised if they didn’t all have worms, but I don’t see why a city rabbit would, and a country rabbit wouldn’t.

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I believe this is something I’m fairly qualified to speak on (unlike many fruit topics!) since I’ve hunted all my life, subscribe to 3 hunting magazines, spend as many hours on our state wildlife website as any website I frequent, and I ate rabbits and squirrels from my city neighborhood growing up (much to my parents horror! haha) as well as hunting and eating game from remote, wild areas all my life… I absolutely believe there is no significant difference whatsoever in a rabbit or squirrel from your back yard and one from middle of Yosemite park. There could be some isolated exceptions like if you live near a hazardous waste area or something, but I feel very strongly that your backyard game is every bit as safe to eat as those taken from deep woods. Their diets will be similar in most cased, and even if they are feeding at bird feeders or urban gardens, they are still eating safe food. There is no higher prevalence of diseases like rabies in neighborhoods either. In fact, the only rabies vacation program KY did last year was in a couple huge, rural state parks where a couple cases were found, while none were reported in KY in urban areas. And just so you know, while I get that you wouldn’t want to test it, even if you got a rabbit or squirrel with almost any disease, it would STILL be safe to eat as long as you cook it properly. There are a couple extremely rare exceptions, but the odds of you getting such an animal as astronomical AND STILL NOT HIGHER IN YOUR YARD than in deep woods.

I can add more fact and sources if you are still worried, but I am absolutely certain that you can eat all the rabbits and squirrels you can catch in your yard and they will be just as safe as those from wilder, remote areas. So, Katie, if you have the courage to kill and eat wild animals, I say DIG IN!!!

Oh…if anything, btw, I think they might be little more fatty and therefore more tasty. I can’t prove that, but it just seems to me that a squirrel or rabbit that is laying back and eating from your garden and fruit trees and maybe neighbors bird feeders would have to work less, and get more calories, resulting in fattier (and therefore better tasting) meat!

Bon appetite, Katie!!!

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I can confirm that squirrels taken near my moms bird feeders are much fatter than squirrels taken further out in the woods

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I wouldn’t worry about eating city rabbits or squirrels. Dad did always tell me that we don’t shoot rabbits before they’ve gone through a few good, hard freezes. Something to do with worms. My guess is his Dad told him the same thing and he simply passed it on.

That said…I don’t shoot bunnies that I’m going to eat until we’ve had some good hard freezes :grinning:

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I want some!

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Your dad was absolutely right. What he was talking about was something that (who knows why) is called “wolves” (not the 4 legged kind). Rabbit “wolves” are actually a form of bot fly, though they look like a worm out of a horror movie. They burrow under a rabbit’s (or squirrel but rarely) skin, they leave a little airhole and live just below the skin. If you kill and clean a rabbit before a hard freeze and some cold weather, you are fairly likely to find one or more of these wolf-“worms” when you skin it. Take it from someone who has cleaned every animal you can think of and is bothered by almost nothing- finding those things will FREAK you out!!! They are sooooo disgusting. But yea, your dad was right.

BTW, @Katie_didnt_Z4b , this still doesn’t mean you can’t kill and eat rabbits in the summer time. I do it all the time. The “wolf worms” do not harm the meat or make in uneatable. It is purely a mental thing, but I must confess that even I have a hard time eating a rabbit I have pulled one of those things off of.

If any of this makes you curious, and if you think you can take it, go to you tube and search “Rabbit wolves” and watch some short videos of hunters cleaning rabbits with these things. I WILL BET you won’t think I’m exaggerating the creepiness of wolf worms then. Holy Cow are they disgusting!!! I would post a link but I don’t want someone who isn’t ready to see it. ha

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Occasionally someone asks to hunt my property for squirrels and I must admit I get a good chuckle because there is 1 or 2 and because I only have Osage orange and no nut trees . Those squirrels taste like hedge apples lol. The phrase you are what you eat is true! I nickname the wild animals and I call that squirrel old hedge apple and he is about as big around as an ink pen lol! We joke about the coyotes not even wanting to eat him and it’s partially true!

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The coyote would have to swallow it whole, lol.

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Lol like swallowing a jalapeño whole the coyote would pay later for that squirrel.

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Thanks for the warning! I will definitely look those wolf worms up. They sound pretty gnarly. I’ve been watching YouTube vids of skinning small animals to desensitize as much as possible. I fished a lot as a kid and my dad liked to have me hang out with him while he gutted them, but nobody in my family are hunters. So…are you able to pull the whole worm out, or so you end up losing parts of it in the meat? :grimacing:

That is hilarious

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Honestly? Pretty damn good. A lot like squirrel-pork (i try to be sensitive to the forum, but tend to describe things in real life as “if A f’ed B…” so if a squirrel made sweaty, dirty love to a pig…)

To be fair this was pretty rural: raccoons eat anything, and pack away a ton of fat: my largely wild raccoon was very good. I still wouldnt eat a dumpster-coon or raccoon in nov. that had spent 3 months scavanging salmon in the milwaukee river…

But i would take another farm coon in a heartbeat

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No no… you definitely will get the whole worm-thing (not really a worm and much more gnarly!) It really doesn’t even get into the meat…it lives in the area between the skin and the meat, so when you peel the skin off, the “wolf” comes with it. I’m very impressed if you watched your dad clean fish and have been watching animal cleaning videos- not a lot of girls I know of would do either, so good for you.

btw, Katie, not sure if you have seen these posts, but here are what I do with the rabbits and squirrels :slight_smile: i really just wanted you to see the photos…

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