Just Butchered our first meat rabbit!

[BeltaineRabbitry]

So we have been preparing for this day for a while now, and finally decided to go ahead and butcher one of our meat mutt does who was not producing for us. This was our very first butcher ever and my husband and I think we did pretty good. Although it took us alot longer than we expected and we had a few hang ups here and there, we are both very proud of ourselves! The next time we have rabbits to butcher will be in a couple of months and we are going to have my mother help us as she has done this before, so hopefully it will go smoother with her here. We had a hard time getting the skin around the legs cut, and the head removed, but I think that was partially due to not having the tools we needed (we thought we had what we needed, however its a learning process). And we both handled the dispatching and butchering with no problems, it was something that we thought we could do but had never done it so it was a bit of a concern (at least for me) but that part at least went smoothly, and I even think that my son (who is 9, and on the autism spectrum) is going to try some rabbit, which is great considering getting him to eat new foods is kind of a pain, but we let him "help" in the butchering process (we made him stay in the house for the dispatching, as we werent sure how it was going to go) and he is very excited to eat something that we produced! So we are very excited for our rabbit dinner tomorrow, and I just wanted to share

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

Cool. That's awesome!! I have never done a rabbit before. I've done chickens, ducks, deer, and squirrels. Turkey will be on that list here soon. The first time always takes forever!! haha

 

[mama24]

I used to hunt with my dad so I knew how to gut and skin a rabbit from that with a hunting knife. But I use kitchen shears now, it's much easier for me. Cut off the feet before skinning. That or you have to pretty much skin inside out and then cut them off from the inside if you want them still attached for any reason. How did you kill your rabbit? I use my son's pellet gun, and it's quick and easy.