Expert: Kent Staubus - 7/24/2006

Question
Thanks for the info!  What exactly does it mean if the rabbit shows the symptoms you described?
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Followup To

Question -
I had always been told there was a time of year when "you aren't supposed to eat rabbits" for some reason or another.  I did quite a bit of internet searching and couldn't come up with anything.  I was hoping you might know something of this?

thanks
-david

Answer -
Once upon a time, it was thought that you shouldn't eat rabbits in the spring.  Not sure why.  This seems to have been mostly a "Southern" thing.  As with rabbit any time of year, you do need to examine the liver to see if it is an orangey-yellow, or has white streaks (lines) in the muscles.  If you see either, bury it and wash your hands very well.  You might ask some old timers (80 years old) about where the story started, or an older game warden.  They would probably know for sure.


Regards,
Kent in SD

Answer
White streaks or lines in the muscles are the disease I've seen the most (but still relatively rare.)  It looks like small white worms in the muscles, but they aren't worms.  They are little "bags" full of germs (protozoa to be specific.)  They are caused by millions of little single celled animals that infect the rabbit.  They also infect ducks.  The name of the disease is sarcocystis.

Any critter with an orangey-yellow liver is likely diseased.  There is one exception to an orange liver being bad, and that seems to be ducks and geese that have been gorging themselves on corn.  

Another well known disease of rabbits is tularemia (rabbit fever.)  It's caused by a bacteria carried by ticks.  It's for this reason that my grandfather would only hunt rabbits after the first heavy frost.  The idea was the frost would kill off the ticks.  The sign of tularemia in a rabbit is white spots on the liver.  Many of the old timer guys I've hunted rabbits with would carefully examine the liver of a rabbit when they cleaned them.  
http://www.beaglesunlimited.net/rabbithunting_tularemia.htm

The general rule of thumb is if a rabbit or other critter doesn't seem to be acting normally or moving very clumsy, pass it up.  This is pretty rare though.  Usually a coyote or something will catch the ones that don't move very fast.  I've never become sick from eating wild critters, and don't personally know anyone that has.

Regards,
Kent in SD