hi. does anyone grind and freeze their rabbit meat? if so how well does the meat hold up when frozen. seems to me it would be about like ground turkey but without all the crap in processed turkey. i have been butchering deer for my private use for 30+ years and love to make sausages usually mixed with pork and would like to try some with rabbit. i don't want to waste any of the delicious meat experimenting. any thoughts appriciated. thanks schmitty

We do it ..it very enjoyable. Deboneing is easy once you get the hang of it.Sausages are just as easy as with the venison. Try a 80% Rabbit 20% regular ground beef mix for burgers and meat balls too! Watch this video on how to debone your rabbit..This is the best way IMO as you use all the rabbit not just the meaty sections.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ud68Qmdyc

thanks. i think i will try a few lbs. just didn't want to get the grinder dirty. didn't have any buns ready when it was deer season. i can't see grinding up the hind qtrs or loins but i think maybe the rest would be okay. the video was great. how many meals do you think he has processed?

__________ Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:25 am __________

thanks for the input......

When we did it his way it took allot longer but as I said earlier you use all the rabbit his way. We were getting a little over 3 pounds of meat doing it that way. so if you did 10 rabbits that 30 pounds throw in another 5 or 6 pounds of pork or beef and you have 35 pounds of sausage or burgers. Oh and it does freeze nice. We love it that way here. Our favourite is rabbit sausage spaghetti! MMMMM suddenly I'm hungry..


Edit for spelling

The hindquarters and loins are the meatiest parts of the rabbit, just FYI....

my thinking is if i bucher 6-8 fryers i should get about 3-4 lbs of front shoulder/leg,rib cage and belly meat. maybe throw in a few hind legs to make it 5 lbs. in the video he showed how to scrape the inside of the rib cage (pretty cool)this would be just a start to see how it works.

There is very little meat on the front leg, rib cage and belly. These are the parts I most often use for soup or stock. The bulk of the meat is the loins and the hindquarters.



In this picture, the hindquarters are on top, the loin under that and the front legs are to the left. As you can see, the front legs are significantly smaller and have less meat.

oneacrefarm, have you seen the video we are refering to? There is lots of meat thats great for grinding up into sausage. Go back and review the video. He has the right idea. He wants to save the hind quarters for whatever and use the rest for grinding. Makes perfect sense to me..

Oh! I thought he just meant using rabbit for meat in general. I totally forgot we were talking about sausage making.... Don't mind me, I have not had enough coffee! Hehehe...and I HAVE seen that video and tried it myself....make sure you have a REALLY sharp knife or you will frustrate the heck out of yourself! That guy sure makes it look easy, doesn't he? We plan on making some sausage as well, as soon as we have some fryers ready to butcher...

thanks waste not want not. i did like the idea of deboning the entire bun and maybe stuffing then rolling and roasting it. might take some practice.

I have done it twice and both times I felt like I had hands that were all thumbs! I definitely need more practice...

I'd like to try rabbit sausage too- my problem is that Tippy (steer) and the piggies are already in Freezer Camp. I know I need to mix more fatty meat with the bunnies... but I think my only safe option is to grind the rabbit, freeze, and then pull out some bunny and pork or beef sausage as needed and mix the meats together at that point.

I guess it's not much of a problem now since I don't have the equipment to do cased sausages presently, but I am hesitant to thaw the beef or pork to mix with the rabbit meat and then re-freeze. I also don't want to purchase store bought meat for the purpose, since we have our superior home grown meat already.

yeah it's never a good idea to refreeze meats in my opinion too. timing is everything isn't it. got any neighbors to trade frozen for fresh. bartering is always fun. i don't have a stuffer either but it has never been an issue. patties taste just as good.

here are the sausages we made!! yummy

We had our first ground rabbit last night, and it was really good! I didn't add any fatty meat to it, I actually didn't have anything else in the freezer right now, other than roasts. I thawed two smallish fryers, and deboned both to grind in the small Kitchenaid grinder. It fried up very nicely with some onions, and a little olive oil. It stayed in nice crumble size. I made spaghetti, and to be honest, neither hubby or I noticed any difference in taste from the sauce we've made from beef, it was just way less greasy, which was nice! Will definitely be grinding more, though like Shannon, I am ALL thumbs!