When Kirsten Tyler and Elias Rosenblatt decided to farm rabbits on pasture in Westford, they anticipated selling the lean, sustainably raised meat to farmers market customers alongside the organic vegetables the couple also grow on their Rocky Hill Farm. They soon realized that was a bit naïve.
During Rocky Hill’s inaugural season in 2021, the couple found that most shoppers were unfamiliar with cooking rabbit. Furthermore, many were “weirded out” by the idea of eating Peter Rabbit or the Easter Bunny for dinner, Tyler recalled.
“We quickly learned about the ‘cuteness factor,’” she said with a grimace.
Even though Tyler and Rosenblatt believed they were producing a healthy meat humanely and ecologically by moving the rabbits to fresh pasture daily in tarp-shaded, wood-and-wire mobile structures, they were not up for trying to change “cultural beliefs,” Tyler said.
Instead, they switched to selling to chefs, who proved to have such a hearty appetite for local grass-fed rabbit that Rocky Hill cannot satisfy it, even after expanding to produce about 400 rabbits this year. The farm is apparently the only one of its kind at commercial scale in the state. Tyler, 43, and Rosenblatt, 37, believe there’s room for others to join them and are eager to share their know-how. They see their approach as a sustainable form of animal husbandry and a promising, low-risk stepping stone into farming livestock.
The few meat-rabbit operations scattered around Vermont largely raise animals in hutches or cages, the couple said. “We’re sort of busting open the mold and showing that this is absolutely a viable way to raise rabbits: more humane, less feed is being used, and they’re happier,” Tyler explained.
We quickly learned about the “cuteness factor.”
Kirsten Tyler
Lindsay St. Pierre of the Vermont Grass Farmers Association confirmed that Rocky Hill Farm seems to be the state’s only pastured rabbit farm of scale. She thinks it’s a “great niche” with opportunity for more farmers. “Rabbits are a low-input, sustainable protein source that do wonderfully on pasture,” St. Pierre continued. “I have seen Kirsten and Elias grow their operation … and put a lot of effort into making their systems efficient while also providing their animals a high quality of life.”
By mid-May, Rocky Hill’s first litters of the year have naturally weaned from the farm’s 19 Rex and New Zealand breeding does. On May 19, the 6-week-old rabbits had been out on pasture for just a couple of days when Tyler and Rosenblatt jumped into their truck bearing “No Farms No Food” and “I brake for butterflies” bumper stickers to drive seven minutes from their one-acre home farm to a 10-acre parcel that neighbors let them use.
Near a plot where Rocky Hill Farm will grow some of its half acre of vegetables, about 60 young bunnies hopped around and nibbled on the greenery under their paws in three 6-by-10-foot mobile structures.
The housing is secure enough that the farmers don’t worry about the future cucumbers and cabbage growing nearby — all ideal “rabbit fodder,” Tyler quipped. The couple followed building plans for mobile “chicken tractors” that are widely used for raising poultry on pasture, with one major difference: Rocky Hill’s have a welded-wire mesh floor to give rabbits access to grass but prevent them from burrowing out and predators from getting in. Over five years, Tyler and Rosenblatt have not lost a single rabbit to wildlife attacks.
As the farmers stepped inside one “tractor” on May 19, young bunnies in shades of milky coffee, pearl gray, splotched black and white, and caramel and cream retreated cautiously to the corners. The fluffy piles aptly illustrated the term “fluffle,” a recently invented collective noun for rabbits that makes the couple smile.
Gradually, a few bunnies ventured closer to munch on freshly picked dandelions. Over the two months they spend on pasture, Rosenblatt explained, the rabbits will get more comfortable around the humans, who bring fresh water and the alfalfa pellets that account for about 50 percent of their diet.
Tyler and Rosenblatt earned PhDs at the University of Vermont, where they met in 2016. Both earn off-farm income as postdoctoral fellows in plant ecology and wildlife ecology, respectively. They have also worked on other local farms, and Tyler continues to do so.
The busy pair don’t have much time to hang with their rabbits, but when they do, “We call it bunny bathing,” Tyler said, a joking reference to forest bathing, the calming practice of immersing oneself in nature.
Rabbit-farming chores are not onerous, the couple said. Rosenblatt demonstrated how they pull the wheeled enclosures about 10 feet once a day to a fresh patch of grass. The young bunnies rode along inside on the wire-mesh floor, seemingly unperturbed that their home was on the move. The regular relocations refresh the rabbits’ salad bar and minimize the risk of disease spread from their droppings. The practice also allows bunny-grazed pasture to regrow, which protects and builds soil.
As the rabbits grow, the daily move becomes a bigger workout for the farmers, who pull the 60- to 70-pound enclosures plus up to 100 pounds of rabbits. Each animal weighs about 5 pounds when it goes to slaughter, yielding 2.5 to 3 pounds of meat on the bone after processing.
When Tyler and Rosenblatt decided to try selling to restaurants, they joined the Vermont Fresh Network, a nonprofit that connected food producers and chefs for almost 30 years before quietly going dark earlier this year. Chefs, they learned, knew that rabbits make delicious eating and were not deterred by their nose-twitching cuteness.
Once the couple found a rabbit slaughterhouse approved for restaurant sales, they were able to easily sell all they produced at a wholesale price of $12 a pound to a handful of Vermont chefs, plus one in Massachusetts.
“The chefs were psyched,” Rosenblatt said.
Bramble in Essex is Rocky Hill’s largest restaurant customer. It bought more than 100 rabbits last year to feature in dishes such as rabbit leg confit; braised rabbit with fettuccine, cherry tomatoes and arugula; and rabbit Bolognese with bacon and cream over housemade pappardelle.
The restaurant’s executive chef/co-owner, Colleen Hunt, said she’s always been a fan of rabbit and, as soon as she heard about Rocky Hill, “never thought twice about buying it.” Hunt gets the most out of the rabbits by carefully using every part: roasting bones for stock and using the meat more often in sauces and braises than in center-of-the-plate portions.
“It’s an awesome protein, especially when it comes only from seven miles away, and they’ve got such a very low carbon footprint for their quality meat,” Hunt said.
The chef would never consider using dry-cooking techniques for the lean meat. Rosenblatt recalled making that mistake when preparing his first farm-raised rabbit. He proudly served it grilled to family and friends, only to find it had “turned to shoe leather.”
Hunt and her husband, Bramble co-owner Shawn Hyer, have taken groups of their employees to see how Rocky Hill raises rabbits, partly so that they can answer customer questions. She acknowledged that “it might take a little education for our guests, but a lot of them are really receptive.”
In addition to selling to restaurants, Rocky Hill vends at the Westford and Milton farmers markets and from a seasonal on-farm stand. Last year, the farm made about $10,000 in gross revenue from rabbits and an equal amount from its organic vegetables. (The rabbits are not organic because the cost of organic alfalfa pellets would raise their price substantially, Rosenblatt said.) Sales have grown at least 30 percent annually since 2021, and the couple have invested all profits back into the business.
Their experience has shown them that pastured rabbits can be a low-investment way to try out raising meat animals. “You don’t need a lot of land. You don’t need big infrastructure, like a barn or fencing. You don’t need to haul a lot of water,” Tyler said. The breeding stock is relatively inexpensive, and rabbits are easy to handle, Rosenblatt added.
Another benefit for farmers just starting out, often on rented land, is that the whole operation can be relocated without much trouble. Since Rosenblatt moved in with Tyler and her two now-teenaged sons in 2019, they have uprooted the family and the rabbits twice before settling down on the one-acre Westford property they bought in 2022.
Tyler recently testified before the legislature as part of an effort to clarify and restore statewide municipal zoning exemptions for farming. She spoke in the wake of the Vermont Supreme Court’s 2025 Taft Street decision, which ruled that individual towns could impose limits on the number of some types of animals raised on small plots of land.
Recapping her argument, Tyler pointed out that the decision could produce a patchwork of inconsistent rules from town to town, creating uncertainty for beginner farmers, who are often obliged to move to find affordable land.
“Just because someone’s farming on a tiny piece of land doesn’t mean it doesn’t count as a farm,” she said. “We want more farms, right? So why are we basically raising the drawbridge?”
The couple aim to continue gradually growing rabbit production while encouraging other farmers to join them. They value the hands-on outdoor work as a balance to their research jobs. Tyler sees a day in the future when she will farm full time; Rosenblatt plans to keep his toe in science.
Tyler said she also loves growing good food for her community, in which she is deeply invested. “I want to give my whole town a big, huge hug,” Tyler said. She manages the Westford Farmers Market, serves on the town’s planning commission and chairs its conservation commission, of which Rosenblatt is also a member.
This year, the couple have embarked on their first big infrastructure project: building a simple cinder-block-foundation pole barn funded by a $23,000 Farm Service Agency loan and, they hope, a pending $8,000 Vermont Farm & Forest Viability Program grant. The barn will allow Rocky Hill to expand rabbit-breeding quarters and improve the vegetable wash-pack facility.
Even with the planned growth, Tyler and Rosenblatt believe Vermont’s farm-to-table restaurants can provide a year-round market for their and other locally pasture-raised rabbit.
They might need to account for a few seasonal lulls, however. Hyer and Hunt of Bramble did note that they decided against putting rabbit on the menu for Easter. ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Meat Cute | Westford’s Rocky Hill farmers hope others join them to meet chef demand for pastured rabbit”
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
