First Butchering Experience

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margali

margali

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I bought one NZ cross at the swap meet a month ago. I setup Cadburry's old cage in the garage. I was afraid that I couldn't kill a rabbit once I had it for a while so I got one to start with. Bunny1 was an evil meany even with daily handling. She got 16% pellets, timothy hay, and garden greens.

I used the broomstick method and I'm afraid I didn't do it quite right because she kept twitching for about 5 minutes. She wasn't breathing at that point though... It took me about 3 hours to get the caracass cleaned and sectioned. I was a crying wreck by the time I was done. Does it get easier? I don't know if I can do a bunch of rabbits I raised from babies. :(

Margali
 
yes, it does get easier. And it was easier with me to do more than one. You don't have time to get all emotional, you HAVE to move on. Also, I don't section right away. I let the carcasses sit in ice, saltwater for several hours first. I get a break between killing and the cutting it up.

Another thing that helps me a lot is to have someone else do it with me. I have teenager daughters and we invite their friends (usually boys)over to help. The boys like to look "tough" so they don't get squeamish. And if they don't then I, being the farmer type adult here, sure can't. LOL

__________ Tue Sep 27, 2011 12:46 pm __________

One more thing, as far as butchered kits you have raised, just make sure there are cuter younger kits always coming up. The butcher age is an awkward, ugly age compared to the little cuties sitting in the palm of your hand.
 
Sometimes the broomstick method can freak me out, personally. I do NOT like those twitchy legs.

It does get easier. My relatives farm but I grew up in the suburbs. First time I cleaned my husbands geese from hunting and did the organs and everything...I totally threw up in the sink.

Now I can dispatch chickens on my own. A lot of it has to do with confidence. The more confident you are in your abilities, the quicker the deed goes, and the faster the animal departs. It's so much easier to do all the rest knowing your animal didn't suffer in any way.
 
I'm afraid you still get the twitchy legs with shooting them, too, which is what we do. It does not mean that the rabbit is still alive in any way, just that the autonomic nervous system is discovering that it cannot seem to communicate with the brain. So the muscles will do all sorts of things once the connection to the brain is gone. We'll get anything from small kicks to fierce hind leg thrusts that can open your arm up if you try to pick the rabbit up.

As long as the rabbit is not breathing, and the head and front legs are not moving, you can be sure that the rabbit is dead. There is a reason we have the saying, "running around like a chicken with its head cut off". Obviously, the chicken is dead. The body just hasn't quite figured that out yet. Without the brain, the animal can experience no pain and no fear or panic.

It never gets fun, and it shouldn't, but it does get easier and faster. We clean ours immediately after skinning, like you did. Then into the fridge for a few days to let the meat get past rigor before going into the freezer. I tend not to cut them up until I'm going to cook them, but it would be better if I did, really. But I'm tired and lazy by then.
 
Margali, give yourself full credit for getting through that first time. :goodjob: The first time I helped butcher something (extra cockerels) I was a nervous wreck. I was so sick with anxiety that we wouldn't get it right.

Your rabbit was dead, even though the legs were twitching. As others have explained, it takes a while for all the systems to shut down, even though the rabbit is dead and unable to feel anything at all. The twitching is not pleasant, but you will learn in time to be confident that the rabbit is dead and to ignore it.

Having a nestful of younger bunnies does help. And having someone to help, helps A LOT. Hang in there... It will get easier and faster as you gain experience.
 
i dont have rabbits yet but being a farm girl i thought i'd add my two cents. i've chopped a chicken's head off with a hatchet before. i was only like eleven at the time and dad held the feet, head barely stuck between two screws in a log. i wasn't confident enough in myself and not strong enough. dad had to hit it a second time to finish it. luckily he had kinda expected it and had a machete ready to quickly end it if i couldn't. so it was mere seconds between chops. i thought it was disgusting and i hated all this farm stuff. ^^
i'm fairly certain that the first time i kill an animal that i've raised that i will cry. probably while i get things ready to do it, then after i kill it. but i also think "hey, i saw this animal live a happy healthy life. i know it wasn't fed a bunch of super medicated feed, or stuck in a tiny space, and that it didn't suffer." and other things like that.
 
When we slaughtered our first batch of rabbits I was worried about how we would all react, but it went surprisingly well. It was a family affair for us, and everyone had a job. DS1(14) brought the victim out to a small surround we made which was placed on a clean rubber stall mat. My hubs shot the rabbit with a pellet gun. Once it stopped twitching we hung it on slaughtering hooks, DH cut the head off and then everybody looked at me (Mom!) and said "Okay you show us how to do the rest the first time.", and even though I hadn't done anything but read about the process, I was voted most qualified. So I made the cuts around the hocks and anus, cut off the front paws with pruning shears, skinned it, then opened the belly and gutted it. I couldn't get the heart and lungs, so my DD (12) volunteered and dug them out. She asked to skin and gut the next one. Our DS2 (9) rinsed the stall mat clean between bunnies. My daughter and I scraped the skins, rinsed them, and put them on hide stretchers. The carcasses were put in ice water to cool and later I quartered and froze them. I didn't know they were supposed to age in the fridge for a few days to get past rigor mortis- and when I cut them up they were stiff- but once thawed from the freezer, the raw meat resembled chicken and had lost that stiffness.

When we were done slaughtering, the kids asked if we were having rabbit for dinner, and my DH said "No-o-o... not tonight." A couple days later I defrosted one and we cooked it for about an hour with Pace Picante sauce, shredded the meat, fried up some taco shells, and served with chopped onion and cilantro. It was delicious and we didn't have to stare a bunny drumstick in the face on our plate. That made our first meal easier (for the adults at least!).

If you can, get some friends to help process your first batch because then you wont feel like such a ghoul. A friend of mine raised turkeys one year and we had a "slaughtering party" on Xmas Eve and it made it a lot easier than if we had done it solo. Also, the more you do it, the easier it gets... we helped prepare a friend's steer for the butcher recently and it didn't bother us- in fact the kids (ours and theirs) artfully arranged the skin, head, and lower legs once they were off. So if you ask farm kids, slaughtering can be fun!



The most important thing to remember is that once it is dead, you can't hurt it anymore, and it is no longer a rabbit or goat or cow- it is meat.
 
It does get easier as your skill develops but personally it isn't something I can do without any emotion and I've done it hundreds of times. There is still a little sadness at the necessity of it but if we eat meat it is a price we have to pay. It's far more honest to do your own killing than to buy in a butcher shop.
 
when my family used to have chickens my dad showed my little sisters how to pull the tendons in the legs to get the toes to move. we would pretty much play barbies with em. hee hee. except for the clothes and house thing ;)
 
ohiogoatgirl":2ndue4oo said:
when my family used to have chickens my dad showed my little sisters how to pull the tendons in the legs to get the toes to move. we would pretty much play barbies with em. hee hee. except for the clothes and house thing ;)
Click to expand...
:lol:
 
I did not realize, although it makes sense, the necessity to get the meat past rigor. Is it just a matter of putting it in the freezer for a few days, or in ice water for a few hours? How soon after you butcher can you eat?
 
When we sent ours to freezer camp, I just put them in large ziploc bags- does anyone use butcher's paper? If so, where do you buy it?
 
I freeze mine in large ziplocs. Most people age theirs in the fridge for 3 - 4 days. Mine take nearly a week to loosen back up, I guess because my fridge is very cold.
 
Wow, I did not realize that it took that long. Glad you guys told me! I guess from a lifetime of eating meat from the supermarket the thought of keeping food in the fridge for 3-4 days BEFORE freezing it never occurred to me. I appreciate it.
 

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