BeachBC
Well-known member
So I did my first batch of rabbits this morning and it went pretty well but not quite as smooth as I would like. The three I did were all somewhere between 5 and 10 months old (just recently bought them from someone else so not sure about exact age) and weighed around 7 lbs live. I used a home made rabbit wringer (given to me by the previous owner of the rabbits) to dispatch them.
I know this is a kinda gruesome post, but I was hoping to get some help for next time from some of you more experienced dispatchers so here goes...
The first one I did was the smallest guy - I felt his neck pop when I pulled and he went totally limp and his eyes felt like a dead animal and didn't blink when I touched them so I figured he was dead and hung him up to skin him, but then his eyes started to move around like he was alive still and the pulse in his neck hadn't stopped so I kinda freaked out and whacked him across the head a couple times with a piece of metal conduit and then completely severed his head just to make sure he was dead.
The second one I let my younger brother do - he was also pretty freaked out about the first rabbit, so he ended up pulling so hard that the head pretty much came all the way off. It seemed like an instant kill, but the rabbit started wiggling around and kicking afterward which was kind of disturbing...other than that the second one went pretty smooth.
The third one was the biggest/oldest buck and right after I pulled he cried. Not a loud scream, just a little cry. I couldn't tell if his neck had popped or not so I pulled over and over just to be sure...maybe an overreaction, but by this point I was ready to be done with the whole thing. He was also the hardest one to skin.
Did I just do a poor job on all of three of them, or were they maybe too old to use a wringer on? Does it sound like the first one was really still alive or was it just reflexes? What was with the second one kicking so much when his head was fully detached? He couldn't possibly have still been alive, right? Was the third one crying from pain? I've heard that some rabbits scream when they get killed, but this was just a little cry...sort of like a cat's meow.
I'd love any tips or insights y'all might have to share...I'm not usually real squeamish about things, but I'd never killed an animal before and after this morning I'm sort of dreading doing this again. (I have three more bucks the same age to do )
Over all it went a lot better than most of the youtubes I watched ahead of time, but I still think it could have been much smoother.
I know this is a kinda gruesome post, but I was hoping to get some help for next time from some of you more experienced dispatchers so here goes...
The first one I did was the smallest guy - I felt his neck pop when I pulled and he went totally limp and his eyes felt like a dead animal and didn't blink when I touched them so I figured he was dead and hung him up to skin him, but then his eyes started to move around like he was alive still and the pulse in his neck hadn't stopped so I kinda freaked out and whacked him across the head a couple times with a piece of metal conduit and then completely severed his head just to make sure he was dead.
The second one I let my younger brother do - he was also pretty freaked out about the first rabbit, so he ended up pulling so hard that the head pretty much came all the way off. It seemed like an instant kill, but the rabbit started wiggling around and kicking afterward which was kind of disturbing...other than that the second one went pretty smooth.
The third one was the biggest/oldest buck and right after I pulled he cried. Not a loud scream, just a little cry. I couldn't tell if his neck had popped or not so I pulled over and over just to be sure...maybe an overreaction, but by this point I was ready to be done with the whole thing. He was also the hardest one to skin.
Did I just do a poor job on all of three of them, or were they maybe too old to use a wringer on? Does it sound like the first one was really still alive or was it just reflexes? What was with the second one kicking so much when his head was fully detached? He couldn't possibly have still been alive, right? Was the third one crying from pain? I've heard that some rabbits scream when they get killed, but this was just a little cry...sort of like a cat's meow.
I'd love any tips or insights y'all might have to share...I'm not usually real squeamish about things, but I'd never killed an animal before and after this morning I'm sort of dreading doing this again. (I have three more bucks the same age to do )
Over all it went a lot better than most of the youtubes I watched ahead of time, but I still think it could have been much smoother.