Butchering in heat

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Rabbit Talk Forum

Help Support Rabbit Talk Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
R

REDMIST

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
74
Reaction score
1
Location
South Central PA
So I always try and butcher when its cooler than 60F. I have a litter of rabbits now that are 8 weeks old and no one is buying them so I will need to butcher soon. Any tricks or suggestions on butchering when the low is 74F?
I butcher outside, I do ice down the meat right after skinning and let the meat cool before packaging. I was thinking about trying to get up at 4 am and do only two at a time. The flys will not be out yet and the sun will still be down.

Thanks
 
I posted something along those lines in June. I think it was titled Notes to Self, if you want to see some other ideas.

It depends on how hot you will be getting, but some things I thought about after harvesting in the heat for when I have to do it again in August:
- Do as much in air-conditioning as possible!
- Have a fan available
- A towel to wipe away sweat from dripping in my eyes (gross, I know)
- A tarp or some way to be sure the sun or rain doesn't get me. I plan on doing 18 in one weekend so the sun will be shifting, I'm new / slow.

I had a few more notes due to the flies - which were horrible - but it looks like you figured a way to avoid that problem!

I'll be watching the thread to see what else might be out there!
 
My biggest concern is spoiling the meat in the heat. It takes me about 5 minutes to skin and another 3 minutes to remove insides. So say 10 minutes from start to when the meat goes into ice water. I think, fingers crossed, it will be ok. Hope some others that have butchered in the heat will chime in.
 
I fine it pretty easy to do indoors if you have the room. There is really little blood. I've done it with an air rifle with the rabbit in a metal washtub. I open them up in the laundry sink but think the kitchen sink is better. The best part of indoor butchering is not having to deal with flies. When you do a big batch having a helper make thing go much smoother.
 
Meat won't spoil in 10-15 minutes even in the heat. Just don't dispatch more than a few at a time. I liked to butcher in threes because there were three of us to feed and it made it easier to group different cuts in one-meal portions.

We used a pellet gun outdoors to dispatch, then decapitated, hung to bleed out briefly and skinned them. Once the first one was skinned I moved indoors to gut and cut up while my partner continued with the skinning. I liked to work on a piece of cardboard on the kitchen counter: a cereal or soda cracker box opened up worked well. Made clean up easier and also let me rotate the carcass smoothly.

We never achieved the speed that many others seem to do, but we never lost any meat and this process worked well for us. I agree with working indoors as much as possible and with a good fan in hot weather. Heat, sweat and flies make the job much more unpleasant.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top