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Comment by rustyhancock | Hacker News Reader

It's says Rabbit was 4-5 times the price of chicken.

That seems a reasonable estimate to me even today.

Rabbit used to be the meat of the poor where I grew up. If you could not afford meat (beef/pork), you could always raise 5 to 10 rabbits in boxes in your garden and feed them with the grass from the road sides.

I have lived in many cities across different countries with dramatically varying economies, and the price of chicken has always been a good proxy for the cost of living. And maintains the same ratio to the price of a bus ticket (and similar things).

Does this phenomenon have a name?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index is the closest i can think of offhand

In the rural UK area where I live farmers will often be happy to have you shoot them with an airgun, if you seek permission. Nice (if stewed) cheap meat.

Farmers in England and Wales have a legal obligation to remove rabbits. You are doing them a favor by volunteering to do so.

No they don't, legal citation needed if you are going to claim this.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/2-3/68

> (2)The occupier of any land in a rabbit clearance area shall take such steps as may from time to time be necessary for the killing or taking of wild rabbits living on or resorting to the land

IIRC all of England and Wales is designated a Rabbit Clearance Area.

Yes, they absolutely do. Since 1954's pests act.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rabbits-how-to-control-numbers

Goodness, I don't imagine a regular airgun is humane for rabbits? The FAC limit is 12ftlb?

We used to use a tight .410 which I think humanely dispatched them but I think an air gun would be much better for the meat.

You can also use blunted arrows to knock them out. Don't know about the humane aspect.

Don't think bow and arrow hunting is legal in any way in the UK.

Really. Didn’t think that still stood, re: kings’s deer, a shame. Bows miss more than rifles.

You have to shoot them in the head, just aft of the eyes. About a 1 inch diameter target. That always kills them.

But if you miss, either by poor shooting or because they bob their head just as you shoot, then they often run off and you never find them. I reckon I get >> 90% kill rate, but that still means a few get away and suffer from the wound.

Price of chicken dropped steeply (and consumption exploded) in the second half of the 20th century after the introduction of broiler breeds and what’s essentially muscle tissue factories. Before that chicken was neither particularly cheap nor eaten that much.

A chicken in every pot

https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruse...

Rabbit is comparatively cheap to produce, and available at low price wherever it is produced in larger quantities. Apparently no significant economies of scale where you live.

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