What Are the Benefits of Eating Rabbit Meat?

All over the world, rabbits are raised for a variety of reasons. Some cultures raise them for food while others raise them strictly for their pelts. A rabbit is only 20 percent bone, so there is little waste when producing the animal for food. The meat is fine grained and used very similarly to poultry, according to North Dakota State University.

How Does Rabbit Compare?

• The nutritional value of rabbit has been tested thoroughly by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Rabbit meat is about 20.8 percent protein and only contains 4.5 percent fat and 795 calories per pound. By comparison, beef is 16.3 percent protein and chicken is about 20 percent. Another competitor to rabbit meat is veal, which contains 19.1 percent protein, but lost its impressive standing by logging 12 percent fat.

Readily Available

• Rabbits are extremely efficient breeders. A single doe can birth approximately 20 bunnies a year. That makes rabbits highly efficient and accessible. In fact, every continent has a wild rabbit population, with the exception of Antarctica. Rabbit populations have been so large due to their preference of dry seasons, that they have been running rampant in Australia and destroying crops. Wild rabbits therefore represent a large, potential wild food source.

Interesting Fact

• In 1935, western Kansas was struggling during the Great Depression. Crops were suffering due to the exceedingly dry conditions and dust storms blew relentlessly across the plains. Jack rabbits could do more than $10 worth of damage each to a crop in one week, so county administrators initiated the Western Kansas Jack Rabbit Roundup. The Roundup covered an eight mile area. No guns could be used, but the men carried clubs. During the Roundup, between 10,000 and 20,000 rabbits were exterminated. According to the Wichita Beacon Newspaper, it was estimated that there were 8 million rabbits covering 30 western counties.

Raising Rabbits

• North Dakota State University recommends that rabbits be raised in relatively small structures that include cages with wire mesh bottoms (so that the cages are "self cleaning." The most expensive part of raising rabbits is purchasing feed, which can be about 75 percent of the total production costs, according to North Dakota State University.