What kind of knife for butchering?

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

Help Support Rabbit Talk Forum:

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

Legacy

Well-known member
Joined
May 14, 2011
Messages
284
Reaction score
0
Location
Tx
I having a hard time finding a good knife to butcher rabbits with. I use a "forever sharp" knife in the kitchen all of the time. It's my favorite normally, but it doesn't work well for butchering. I bought a fish fillet knife from sporting goods, thinking that would be the way to go. But still no good.

What kind of knife do you butcher with? I need something that makes butchering much less work. I hate having to hack and hack just to try to get my knife to do any good.
 
I use my Wiltshire "self-sharpening" knife - about a five inch blade. It's my all-time favourite in the kitchen and is still good after about 20 years. If I were buying again, I would look for a slightly shorter blade.

I do have to run my Wiltshire in and out of the case a few times before butchering, but that's all. The Wiltshire (along with a pair of cheap kitchen scissors and some pruning shears for removing feet) is all I need.
 
I haven't yet butchered a rabbit, but I have butchered deer and for that I use my Gerber knife. It's great for doing deer, and has a bone saw attachment.
 
I use more scissors and shears than knife and when I need a knife I use whatever the one is that came with my game processing kit from the hardware store. There isn't a whole lot of slicing to a rabbit unless you want to prepare it a certain way or your method of killing is slitting the throat. Most of it you can just pull apart. Get the skin started, I use scissors, and then just peel it off. Finish removing the head which could be done with a knife but can be cut with scissors. Pull/cut the belly open which even a dull knife can do and pull out the internal organs. Sometimes I use scissors to get the pelvic bones apart so I can get the end of the intestines out cleanly. Then cut the feet off which is done with shears or really good scissors.
 
I use a skinning knife.

I have 2, one gerber with a 3-4 inch blade and one (can't remember the brand) with a 4-5 inch blade. Both have a sturdy heavy handle that doesn't get slippery, and I use them in rotation--I do one rabbit with one knife, send it in to be sharpened by my husband while I do the next rabbit.

Keeping them sharp is the main thing, seems to me. The hubby is too squeamish to butcher, but he is a fantastic knife sharpener, Lord help me if I ever slip. The beauty of a really sharp knife is that you don't hack and saw with it, you use it like a paintbrush or a pen--I have done a lot of dissection, I use them like a scalpel. I like boning out the whole rabbit (after it has been chilled and rested), and I use those same 2 knives. Sharp knives make the job easy.
 
LOL. My hubby is too squeamish to butcher too but he does the killing for me. The killing doesn't bother him. He is bothered by the grossness.

I'm too squeamish to do the killing but the butchering doesn't bother me a bit.
 
You sound like a good team! :)

My hubby can't do the killing either--well he CAN, but he looks green around the gills when he is done. I felt too sorry for him, so I started doing it, after all it doesn't bother me, and the rabbits were my idea. His family raised rabbits as a kid, and he was forced to butcher animals I suspect he had secretly named :cry: ... big softie. :lol:
 
I use a garden shears, a pruning shears and a retractable razor blade knife I got from TSC.
 
I use a retractable razor blade to cut the part of the leg to hang them and use sewing shears for everything else. I tried different knives but have found scissors much, much easier.
 
I think I may have to try scissors...I can see how they would work better in most areas, except the head and feet. I don't like breaking the bones, I want to go between the joints. It makes a cleaner better-looking carcass for cooking.
 
I go Buck all the way. The few extra dollars are worth it to have a good quality knife that's a joy to use. I have a pocket stockmans knife I use for bleeding, gutting and skinning. I find a regular skinning knife too large for use with small game like rabbits. Bucks' boning knife is an excellent tool for cutting up or deboning. If you learn to disjoint you don't need shears.<br /><br />__________ Thu Jul 14, 2011 5:45 am __________<br /><br />
 
I use a somewhat heavy meat cleaver for removing heads, pruning shears for feet and tail. The hide usually just pulls off in one piece once the extremities are removed. If I want to tan it flat the hide can be cut with scissors after it is pulled off.
 
Dirk Chesterfield":wq5pfywn said:
Mora #2 knife. Mild steel blade is super easy to sharpen. Scandinavian grind makes it a breeze getting the right angle when sharpening.

I use mine for all gutting, boning and skinning. The only thing it doesn't do well is fillet fish. Best thing is that it's very inexpensive.

http://www.amazon.com/Mora-Knives-Class ... 980&sr=1-2
Click to expand...
It's a trrade off. Mild steel sharpens very fast but also loses its edge faster than a harder steel. I used to favor hard tempered steel but the newer types of stainless are almost as hard and you don't have to keep them oiled down to prevent rust.
 
I use my trusty Case Trapper. I use both blades, skinning with pointed blade and gutting with round tip blade. The case XXX knives are very easy to sharpen, but they do not hold edge long. I have never seen a need to use pruning shears for the legs if you hit the joint just right.
 
I recently refreshed my knife collection, and got a few specifically to make butchering easier. There is also 2 different steps for me, processing and butchering. Keep in mind that when I process fryers, I typically do no less than 10 at a time, so it can become time consuming.

Processing: - the process of cleaning, skinning, and gutting.
* A Gerber mini paraframe, which is a very small, very sharp folder, for starting feet and skinning/gutting.
* A Gerber gator machete, also very sharp, and a wood block to take heads.
* A pair of sharpened ratcheting garden clippers for feet. I also have a ratcheting PVC pipe cutting tool that would work, it comes sharper from the factory, and is made to stay sharper that the rose clippers.

Butchering: The process of taking an aged rabbit carcass and quartering or deboning it for cooking.
Both from my kitchen knife block,
* A lightweight cleaver, for separating the saddle section from the front shoulders and ribcage, and tail and hips.
* A deboning knife or fillet knife, for separating hind quarters off the hips, and shoulders off the ribcage. Also for the occasions when I want to debone a saddle or do the "rabbit roll" thing in the video at the top of this section.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top