A sentence from "Rabbits are so cute, how can they eat rabbits?" movie line, let the rabbits out of the circle.
Rabbits not only have great looks, but also have a very strong reproductive ability. They can give you a litter of little rabbits in no time. In daily life, we often see pork, mutton, and beef on the dining table, but we rarely see rabbit meat . Why is this?
When we were children, we were all deeply affected by the story of "Chang'e Flying to the Moon" . In the five thousand-year history of the Chinese nation, rabbits have symbolized auspiciousness and fertility, which will not only bring stability to the country, but also bring good harvests to the people.
Rabbits are herbivorous vertebrates of the order Lagomorpha and the family Leporidae. They have very distinctive looks. They usually have small heads and floppy ears, and are covered in fluffy fur, giving them a very silly look. In the classic TV series "Journey to the West", when the beautiful lady Chang'e appears, she always holds a snow-white rabbit full of aura in her arms. This makes many people have beautiful thoughts about rabbits .
But in real life, the color of rabbits is not only snow white. There are many types of rabbits, and their coat colors are correspondingly pink, black, brown and other colors. From a distance, rabbits look a bit like small, beautified kangaroos. The limbs of rabbits are also with short forelimbs, long hind limbs, and a certain degree of arching on the back.
Although the rabbit's hind limbs are strong and powerful, they are not only useful for daily running and jumping, but can also become a weapon to break free when being restrained by natural enemies. The character of rabbits is far less violent than kangaroos. Normally, rabbits do two things, namely eat and give birth to children.
Although rabbits look docile and weak, they are very timid and sometimes easily scared. But their ability to survive is extremely strong, and rabbits live in habitats all over the world.
my country's rabbits are mainly distributed in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Xiaoxinganling, Changbai Mountain and other places. Rabbits like to live in deserts, grasslands, and forests. During the day, especially rabbits exposed to human eyes, they behave particularly docile , always look very reserved and motionless.
And at night, the rabbit put on another face. The fall of night brings a great sense of security to rabbits. At this time, wild beasts and birds of prey have usually fallen asleep. Therefore, rabbits are very active at night and start to look for food.
Rabbits are herbivores . They are a bit picky about food. They will throw away food they don't like after one taste. Rabbits generally feed on the roots, stems, leaves and seeds of plants.
Rabbits are not all short and cute. Rabbits can be divided into large rabbits, medium rabbits and small rabbits. Large rabbits usually weigh 5 kg to 8 kg, followed by medium rabbits, weighing about 2 kg to 4 kg. Small rabbits are relatively mini and are unpopular pets chosen by humans, weighing about 2 kilograms or less.
But no matter what kind of rabbit, they all have one thing in common, that is, has a strong reproductive ability . The reproduction of rabbits is like a tireless "fertility factory". The lifespan of a rabbit is generally 4 to 9 years, and the gestation period is only 130 to 35 days. This means that after reaching sexual maturity, rabbits will invariably start breeding.
Moreover, the number of rabbits produced per litter is really amazing, usually around 6 to 12. They can reproduce all year round. It is conservatively estimated that a female rabbit can produce 0 baby rabbits .
Even if something unexpected happens to this litter and the output cannot keep up, it doesn't matter. Rabbits have an even more magical function, which is to mate again and become pregnant during the confinement period. This familiar "recipe" reminds people of the "Kidney King" seal who doesn't even want to eat and is devoted to mating and giving birth to cubs.
So the question is, since rabbits are so "abundant", why do Chinese people who always advocate delicacies and "game" rarely eat rabbit meat? In fact, contains many reasons why is complicated than .
It’s not that Chinese people don’t eat rabbits, but they eat them selectively. such as and rabbit head are very popular among Sichuan people. Spicy rabbit heads are everywhere in the streets and alleys, and native Sichuan people even hate them.
In addition, there are also some diners who eat rabbit meat, grilled and cooked in soups, but the audience is not large, so the reputation of rabbit meat is not great. Some senior diners revealed the reason why rabbit heads are not as popular as pork and chicken.
First, it is expensive. Wild rabbit meat contains many bacteria, and cultured rabbit meat is much more expensive than home-cooked meat. Second, the size of the rabbit is almost not directly proportional to the rabbit meat content.
Although some rabbits are fluffy, they look very plump at first glance. Once all the hair is removed, the rabbit's skeleton is exposed like it's worthless. As the saying goes: "It's tasteless and tasteless" .
There is not even enough rabbit meat in a rabbit to fit between your teeth, and the quality of the meat is not outstanding. There is no fun in eating it.
In the wild nature, the strong reproductive ability of rabbits can be regarded as a capital for the continuation of the race. is easy to be targeted by humans if it becomes widespread. Although rabbits have been introduced to the market for breeding with great success, their amazing reproductive ability has really shocked farmers who are used to seeing big waves.
Although, a productive rabbit population can bring more profits. But what worries farmers the most is that once one or two rabbits in a group of rabbits are infected with the disease, other rabbits will inevitably be affected. may be transmitted to pregnant rabbits and transmitted through the mother's body. Unborn rabbits will be at risk of infection before they are born. comes and goes, from mother to young, mother to young, and the losses faced by breeding sites are extremely heavy.
It is worth mentioning that the constitution of rabbits is the same as their easily frightened personality. They are very sensitive and fragile. In some farms, there have even been incidents of female rabbits eating newborn rabbits after being frightened.
The rabbit population on the vast grassland has a low risk of disease infection among each other due to its low density. However, artificial breeding is different. Under the careful care of humans, rabbits have become accustomed to "opening their mouths when eating", their exercise power has been greatly reduced, and their physique is not as tough as those surviving in the wild.
Over time, the rabbit became the hot potato of and . Farmers are not willing to take over the business at huge risks, and diners don’t want to spend money eating “tasteless” rabbit meat. Rabbit meat is gradually fading out of the ranks of mainstream human meat.
Although rabbit meat is lonely, it is not as popular as beef and pork. But not being favored by humans is not a good thing. As an important part of the ecological circle, once the rabbit population drops sharply, it will cause great ecological impact
