Butchering 25 in one day - whew!

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lemonthyme

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So, we butchered 25 rabbits last Saturday. We is DH and I. It was a LONG day! These were well past their butchering date so I decided to can them - plus I am short on freezer space. So I was pressure cooking at the same time as we were butchering. We took meat off bones that night but I chilled the broth and meat in coolers and canned Monday as I was beat! We gave 6 to my MIL to can and I ended up canning 19. I got 21 quarts of canned rabbit - yeah! I love to have it in convenient form like that for quick meals. DH and I both agreed that we would never let it go long enough to have to do that many in one day again though! Right now I have 2 batches of 8 week olds and a week old batch. Will probably breed 2 more in a week or 2. I'm trying to breed 2 at a time but space breedings a couple weeks apart so they are not all due to be butchered at once.
 
Thanks Maggie! I would have loved to spread it out but we have had so many rainy Saturdays that we decided we needed to get it done while we had a nice day. DH works nights so the only time he has is Friday after he gets off work or Saturday. Just glad it's done! LOL!
 
Wow... that's a lot of processing for one day.

How easy is it to can the meat? Do you fully cook it first or raw pack? I have a new pressure cooker and canning equipment and looking forward to using it. Any tips would be appreciated.

:beer2:
 
Holy WOW!! :shock: That's alot of work! Congrats though, it must be very rewarding to have so much great meat available to use now.
 
i feel for you buddy made the mistake one summer to take up a job butchering for a couple who just did theres for personal family use i gues and i buthcered 3 times over the summer charged em one dollar a head (way to cheap by the way) the first time there was about thirty the next two times was 100 rabbits each time tell ya what i didnt wana see another fryer for a month at that time lol
 
When I did the canned rabbit, I cooked them all first in the pressure cooker (saves time as they cook faster) and pulled all the meat off the bones. I guess I could have de-boned them and packed the meat raw but I figured it would be more time consuming and it would be harder to get all the meat cleanly off the bones. Normally I would have packed the meat right then but I was exhausted so I saved it and the broth in a cooler and did it another day. I did heat the broth up and packed the meat in jars and poured in the broth. I did quarts and those get processed for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. It took awhile as I have a small pressure canner (7 quarts). If you do pints, you would do it for 60 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. It's not hard to do and is very rewarding to have all that meat canned and ready to use on the shelf.

RunninMI: That is a crazy amount of rabbits - I feel for you! LOL!
 
No, I didn't use salt, BUT I did use some vegetable broth seasoning in the water when I pressure cooked them and that is the broth I used when canning them so it did have some salt content. You don't have to use salt but if you had no other seasoning you could use a little - sorry, not sure how much to recommend.
 
Thank you!!!!! Like Rickerra, I have new canning stuff and am just learning. I've been contemplating trying to can some rabbit, but was wondering exactly how.
 
That is alot of rabbits in one day! Our normal routine is 10 but we have done 16 before. That is tiring.

Thanks for the canning info. I will have to try that.
 
mountainrabbits: This was my first time canning rabbit but I have canned beef before so was not new to canning meat. It is very easy to use once canned. The meat is already cooked so you can use it in just about anything. Anyplace you might use chicken or pork is a good place to start since I think of it as a "white" meat. I've even done pulled rabbit sandwiches (think pulled pork) - it is drier (no fat) so you might need more sauce but yummy!
 
A couple weeks ago we made crock pot rabbit for my family, and my husband made bbq pulled rabbit sandwiches with the left overs. It was really yummy!
 
Wow that's a days work,I once did 55 in a day never again :p to much like work rising rabbits should be relaxing not work :roll: :roll:
 

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