Newspapers / The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / Dec. 9, 1982, edition 1 / Page 15
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SECTION II <*Y\jew6 - journal Helping Hand ?? 3- weeks old Dutch bunnies in Murphy's rabbit house. That's Murphy's hand nudging one into proper pose for picture. MtMt snow . i, / ? V V V ?* >5 i'+.j, . Kaetord. . The first show auio was hdd in Raeford, at the old Araiory, and on the seme day as the Christmas parade waa held. - '..Murphy said Thursday about 40 exhibitors with about 400 entries from Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia are ait pected. The entries will include representatives of breeds rang ing from Dwarfs to Checkered Giants. . The judges will be Harry Rice of Portsmouth, Ohio, and Stan Fraed of Chester, Va. , who have had many years of experience in raising and judging rabbits. The show will continue till about 4 p.m. and is open to the public free of charge, Mur phy said. Murphy also will be one of the exhibitors with rabbits competing for honors. He is one of the founders of the Cape Fear Association. It was established eight years ago, with tlx members. _______ ? mm ? __ Virgil Murphy with his California buck named Best Commercial in recent state show. Virgil Murphy [left], holding chocolate colored Dutch doe, with Richard Melton, Hoke county associate Agricultural Extension agent, between rows of cages housing Murphy's rabbits. On the rear wall are some of the many ribbons his rabbits have won in show. \ utile Bunny Business For Virgil Murphy Rabbit Raising Has Taken Off by Bill Lindau If Virgil Murphy has his way, everyone in this part of the country will be eating rabbit stew. Murphy, who lives at Rt. 1, Raeford, is the county's largest rabbit grower and keep a herd averaging 150. As President of the Cape Fear Breeders Association. Murphy wants to get everybody interested in raising rabbits at home, and he sees them as a source of food (with a chicken flavor) high in nutrition value -? low in fat and cholestral and high in protein - and a comparatively cheap food at that. Murphy also sees them as good pets, too, and he sells some of his from time to time as food and some as pets. He said he sells rab bits as fryers to individuals, not to food markets, and they are ready to cook. He slaughters the com mercial rabbits, cuts them up and packages them on his farm, keep ing the packages in his freezer till the customers come. The market for rabbits, he said, brings $4.50 per packaged rabbit, which weighs four to four and a half pounds, in Fayetteville, and $5 to $6 for the same weight in other places. Basically, however, he said, he is a breeder. He sells about 200 rab bits a year for meat, and this income pays his expenses for exhibiting his animal in shows. The profit margin on commercial rabbit is small, he said: he gets 60 cents per pound live weight commercial ly, and it costs 40 cents to 45 cents a pound to raise the rabbit. To expand the commercial market in the area, he said, will take military contracts. Murphy said the Marines have been serving rabbit at their bases for the past several years regularly. If the Ar my, Navy and Air Force can be persuaded to do the same, the commercial rabbit business will be expanded satisfactorily. What the U.S. rabbit producers also need, he added, is federal government inspection of rabbits imported from Red China. He said U.S. rabbits have to be inspected, but China rabbits don't. The breeders appealed to Presi dent Jimmy Carter for application of inspection to the Chinese but got nowhere, and now they are seeking the same from President Ronald Reagan. Murphy indicated their hopes of success are higher than they were with Carter. "Maybe Reagan will," he said, "as California has a great many rabbit-producers." Murphy said the Red Chinese rabbits are poor in quality, conse quently make poor eating. This literally leaves a bad taste in the mouths of Americans trying rabbit for the first time and, consequently turns them away from all rabbits, since they don't know the dif ference between Chinese and American rabbits for eating. He and the other breeders also want to destroy the myths about rabbits. For example, he said, people believe rabbits make poor eating in the summer because they are breed, the does (female rabbits) are producing milk, and so forth. He said his sales, consequently, slump in summer but pick up quickly when the cool-weather season starts again. Murphy said he nearly emptied his freezer in a fairly short time this year after fall came. Murphy sells several hundred rabbits from his freezer a year. He pointed out, however, that this prejudice against "hot weather" rabbits is based on the idea that rabbits are wild. But, he explained, the rabbits produced for the market are controlled in their development by the owners. He said that it takes about eight weeks to raise rabbits to fryer size (about 10 pounds) from birth. One Murphy rabbit which is go ing neither to the supermarket nor the pet shop is Tadpole, a 4-year old Dutch buck. Tadpole is a Grand Champion of his breed. To win that title, Murphy explained, a rabbit has to win at least three "legs" as a breed champion first. He said Tadpole has won "15 or 20." Tadpole will spend the rest of his life, till old age gets him, at Murphy's. Murphy said a rabbit's life runs 7 to 9 years, averaging 6, as a pet. Another star in the Murphy hutch is a buck, who hasn't been given a name. This one, a Califor nia breed, which is all white, won the title of Best Commercial in 1982. He celebrated his first birth day on October 10. Murphy also has a New Zealand breed, but he likes to try out dif ferent breeds every few years. Next he's going into Champaignes d'Argent, a French breed, which is born black but whose coat changes to silver as the animal grows older. Murphy said it is a good commer cial rabbit. By weight, the New Zealand buck reaches 10 pounds and the doe 11 pounds at peak, and the Californians a pound lighter on the average, Murphy said. Dwarfs run about two pounds and Flemish Giants about 20, he added. The heaviest rabbit recorded weighed 25 pounds. Murphy raises his rabbits - also some beef cattle, ducks, about 20-plus Guinea roosters and hens, and some regular egg-laying hens - on his 25-acre farm off the Raeford Airport road. Murphy said more and more Hoke County people are getting a pair to five or six rabbits to start raising rabbits at home. The Cape Fear Association has two other members in Hoke Coun ty. Murphy said as many things can be done with rabbit in cooking as with chicken and showed a newspaper clipping describing recipes - Northern Fried Rabbit, Lemon Barbecued Rabbit, Ragout of Rabbit, Hasenpfeffer, and Rab bit Paprika. There are others. Preparing rabbit for individual customers is one reason why Mur phy doesn't need a government license to do the meat preparation. He said the license would be re quired if he sold the meat to stores. He added, also, that the commer cial plants which supply food stores also process and sell the other parts of the rabbit -- hide; feet and pancreas (an ingredient of certain medicines). Rabbit fur, he said, can pass for the fur of any other animal, but the Rex breed of rabbit is an excep tion. He said the fur of this breed is such high quality that it is ex ported to Japan. The Japanese, he said, import very little, a sign of the value they place on the Rex fur. But, he said, that after a while, as they do with other imported products, they'll be producing their own. In the shows, the rabbit scorned by the judges because one ear has a spot of color that doesn't conform to the breed's ideal goes to a pet shop -- and some kid will grab it immediately because it does have that funny color, Murphy said. That illustrates a principle of life: one man's loser is some kid's pet. Tadpole. Virgil Murphy s Grand Champion. Some Of the hbboru, medals and trophies Virgil Murphy 'j rabbits have won in shows. The photos at bottom left are those of Mr. and Mrs. Murphy s children. .
The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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Dec. 9, 1982, edition 1
15
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