1024 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



that she ought to b6 otherwise disposed of. Some does admit the buck with difficulty, although often 

 apparently in season ; such should be immediately fattened off", since it can never be worth while to keep 

 any individual for breeding of a stock to be produced in such multitudes, against which there lies 

 an objection. Should the doe be weak on her bringing forth, from cold, cough, or other causes, she will 

 drink beer-caudle, as well as any other lady ; or warm fresh grains will comfort her ; a salt-mash ; scalded 

 fine pollard, or barley-meal, in which maybe mixed a small quantity of cordial horse-ball. With due 

 attention to keeping them warm and comfortable, and guarding against every sudden impression from 

 cold, and more particularly moist air, and with the aid of the best and most nourishing food, rabbits may 

 be bred throughout the winter, with nearly equal success as in the summer season. But, in truth, their 

 produce is so multitudinous, that one might well be satisfied with four or five litters, during the best part 

 of the year, giving the doe a winter fallow. 



6605. Feeding. According to Mowbray, it is better to feed three times than twice a day. The art of 

 feeding rabbits with safety and advantage, is, always to give the upper hand to dry and substantial food. 

 Their nature is congenial with that of sheep, and the same kind of food, with little variation, agrees 

 with both. All weeds, and the refuse of vegetation, should be banished from rabbit teeding. Such 

 articles are too washy and diuretic, and can never be worth attention ,wbilst the more solid and nutritious 

 productions of the field may be obtained in such plenty, and will return so much greater profit. Rabbits 

 may, indeed, be kept, and even fattened upon roots, good green moat, and hay; but they will pay for 

 corn ; and this may be taken as a general rule : rabbits which have as much corn as they will eat, can 

 never take any harm from being indulged with almost an equal portion of good substantial vegetables. 

 However, the test of health is, that their dung be not too moist. Many, or most, of the town feeders 

 never allow any greens at all ; the reason, I suppose, because they feed almost entirely on grains. The 

 corn proper for rabbits, is oats, peas, wheat, pollard, and some give buck-wheat. The greens and 

 roots; the same as our cattle crops, namely carrots, Jerusalem artichokes, and if potatoes, baked or steamed. 

 Lucerne, cabbage leaves, clover, tares, furze. Mowbray has had them hoven, from eating rape ; and 

 not improbably, field-beet might have a similar effect. The best dried herbage is clover and meadow 

 hay, and pea and bean straw. 



6606. Rabbits are generally sold from the teat, but there is also a demand for those of larger size, which 

 may be fattened upon corn and hay, with an allowance of the best vegetables. The better the food, the 

 greater weight, better quality, and more profit, which is generally the case in the feeding of all animals. 

 Some fatten with grains and pollard. Mowbray tried wheat, and potatoe oats, comparatively ; but could 

 find no difference in the goodness of their flesh. The rabbit's flesh being dry, the allowance of succulent 

 greens may tend to render it more juicy; and probably the old complaint of the dryness of the flesh in 

 Devon beef, entirely fed with hay, might be remedied in the same way. Rabbits are in perfection for 

 feeding at the fourth or sixth month ; beyond which period, their flesh becomes more dry and somewhat 

 hard. It requires three months, or nearly so, to make a rabbit thoroughly fat and ripe ; half the time 

 will make them eatable, but by no means equal in the quality of the flesh : they may yet be over fattened, 

 as appears by specimens exhibited a tew years since at Lord Somerville's show, which were loaded with fat, 

 without and within, like the best feeding sheep. 



6607. The flesh of the rabbit \s Qsteemed eiinaWy dXgesiWAe &s that of fowls, and equally proper for the 

 table of the invalid. 



6608. Castrated rabbits might be fattened, no doubt, to the weight of upwards of ten pounds, at six 

 or seven months old. It is said to be successfully practised in Sussex, near Chichester, where on the 

 average, not one in three hundred is lost by the operation, which is performed at five or six weeks old. 

 "With respect to the quantity of corn consumed in fattening ; a young buck, which weighed three pounds, 

 fit for the spit, was put up in good case in August, and was only one month in feeding, consuming not 

 quite four quarts of oats, with hay, cabbage, lucerne, and chicory ; the skin, silver and black, worth 

 four pence. 



6609. In slaughtering full-grown rabbits, after the usual stroke upon the neck, the throat should be per- 

 forated upwards towards the jaws with a small pointed knife, in order that the blood may bo evacuated, 

 which would otherwise settle in the head and neck. It is an abomination to kill poultry by the slow and tor- 

 turing method of bleeding to death, hung up by the heels, the veins of the mouth being cut; but still more 

 so the rabbit, which in that situation, utters horrible screams. The entrails of the rabbit, whilst fresh, 

 are said to be good food for fish,'^being thrown into ponds. 



6610. The rabbit is a caressing animal, and equally fond, with the cat, of the head being stroked ; 

 at the same time it is not destitute of courage. A whimsical lady admitted a buck rabbit into her 

 house, when he-became her companion for upwards of a twelvemonth. He soon intimidated the largest 

 cats so much, by chasing them round the room, and darting upon them, and tearing off their hair by 

 mouthfulls, that they very seldom dared to approach. He slept in the lap by choice, or upon a chair, or 

 the hearth rug, and was as full of mischief and tricks as a monkey. He destroyed all the rush -bottomed 

 chairs within his reach, and would refuse nothing to eat or drink, which was eaten or drank by any other 

 member of the family. 



66n. Diseases. No live stock is less liable to disease than the rabbit, with regular and careful attention, 

 such as has been pointed out, so that any sudden and accidental disorder is best and most cheaply reme- 

 died by a stroke behind the ears. But want of care must be remedied, if at all, by an opposite conduct, 

 and improper food exchanged for its contrary. Thus, if rabbits become pot bellied in the common phrase, 

 from being fed on loose vegetable trash, they must be cured by good hard hay and corn, ground malt or 

 pease,or any substantial or absorbent food. Their common liver complaints are incurable, and when such 

 are put up to fatten, there is a certain criterion to be observed. They will not bear to be pushed beyond a 

 moderate degree of fatness, and should be taken in time, as they are liable to drop off suddenly. The 

 dropsy and rot must be prevented, as they are generally incurable ; nor is a rabbit worth the time and 

 pains of a probable cure. gqg 



6612. The harey(Lepus timidus, L., 

 Jig. 696.) if taken young may be tamed 

 and domesticated, and has occasionally 

 been nursed by a cat. Sonnini the natur- 

 alist, and Cowper the poet, had hares in a 

 complete state of domestication. As the c ^-g^ 

 fur of this animal is of greater value for ^ ^^ ^^^^^^ 



hat making than that of the rabbit, it would "'^*^'*'^=^^'"^^^^^,i^i^==^ 



be a very desirable circumstance if it could be substituted for that animal in war- 

 rens. Its flesh would certainly be deemed preferable, and in general it is a large 

 animal. It lives on the same sort of food as the rabbit, produces generally three young 

 ones at a time, and breeds at least tliree times in a year. It is not improbable that 

 in some dry situations where the soil is dry and poor, a hare warren or pack might 

 be found to answer ; the price in the metropolis being never less than ten times that of 

 rabbits. 



