I am sitting here at my desk watching the fourth or fifth snow of autumn dump on us. We are in a winter storm warning and forecast to get 10-18 inches of snow before it's over. I think we're about ready for winter, since we started getting the cold weather in September. We joked about it when, on September 21 we got our first snowstorm. We called it the last snowstorm of summer. It was followed a few days later by the first snowstorm of autumn, and we've had a few more since then.
It's hard to believe it's been over two months since I've contributed to the farm blog, but it's true. I'm debating about taking the blog down off our website, since I'm so sporadic, and it seems not many folks read it. I will try for a while to be more regular, and we'll see how that goes.
A lot has happened this fall, and we've made some key decisions concerning the future of our farm. Due to the dismal showing of our vegetable crops this summer and the tremendous amount of labor involved, we've decided to concentrate on livestock. We will still raise vegetables, but not on the scale we attempted this summer. We have interest from many friends and several restaurants in vegetables and greens, so we will plan to raise enough to accommodate them. We will probably not attempt farmers-market quantities of vegetables, however. If you would like to purchase our organic vegetables next year, please contact us directly.
Within the livestock department, we are ramping down our rabbit operation. While we will continue to raise them, the commercial marketing angles we were pursuing did not materialize after two years of work. We now have a facility where we can process them under USDA inspection, however, the cost of the inspection is so significant that it radically raises the cost of the meat, to the point where inspected rabbit meat is out of range for most people.
This cost issue is a shame. Rabbit meat is arguably one of the best domestic meats to consume, lower in cholesterol and higher in protein than beef, pork, chicken or lamb. Plus it's useful as a replacement for chicken in recipes. We think more Americans should eat rabbit. So here's the dilemma: The USDA considers rabbit inspection voluntary, which means that they do not require rabbit to be inspected to be sold in the US. However, the state of Colorado requires rabbit to be inspected, and they require USDA inspection. So since to the USDA it's voluntary, they charge us, the processor, the cost of inspection. This amounts to about $50/hr of the inspector's time. If we are only processing 10 rabbits at a session, the inspection cost adds about $5 to the cost of each rabbit, perhaps more. Thus, inspection is the second largest cost in raising rabbit, behind the cost of feed. Poultry, beef, pork, and lamb are not voluntary to the USDA, but compulsory, so the cost of the inspector is paid for by the USDA. Long story short, if you want rabbit, please contact us directly.
So that leaves the pigs and sheep, both of which we are continuing to raise in larger quantities. There may be some interesting developments coming within the next six months in the pork department, so stay tuned.
