My First Butcher **Very Graphic Pics**

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Jamie Dog Trainer

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Here is the butchering process of my White Satin Buck. I chose to cull him from my breeding program due to his slow growth and small size. As you will see I used a .22, and shot him just under the occiputal point on the skull.

*the whimpering sounds you here in this video are of my friends baby, not the rabbit*
Rabbit kill

I hung him and snipped around his legs with kitchen shears. I made the mistake of cutting the large tendon on the back of the thigh, that made skinning him harder as the meat wanted to tear away from the bone. I got better with the second rabbit. All in all it was quite easy.

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Next, I snipped around the genitals/anus area to leave it there. I then peeled the skin back. You can see where I cut the tendon on the hind legs here, notice how they are pulled back with the skin. Learn from my mistake.

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Then I turned the carcass so I could snip the head off. Getting the front legs out of the "sleeve" wasn't easy and I had to snip some connective tissue and pull them through. After that cutting the joint with the scissors was very easy.

I used a box cutter to cut the abdominal mucles to remove the organs.

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Almost done here, the only thing left to do is snip the hind legs off.

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Nice healthy organs. Even though my rabbits have access to exercise pens that are on the ground, I didn't see any signs of Coccidios in either of my rabbits. The liver is obviously normal with no bumps or lesions.

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This is the second rabbit I butchered today. She was a large NZ doe. About 5 pounds of meat or more!

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Thank you so much for posting this! I am weeks away from my first butcher but this helps tremendously!
 
Thanks for posting, we will be butchering some this weekend and it helps to have a visual.
 
I'm so glad you both found this useful. It didn't take me long to do both rabbits--about an hour for my first time isn't bad for two of them from kill-to-cleaned carcass.
 
Excellent pictures! We've butchered a good number of rabbits now, and I still can't seem to avoid that blasted tendon! Oh, well, as long as I'm careful with the skin, it comes out okay. :) The front legs rarely come out of their sleeves easily.

I noticed that, with the .22, you didn't get much movement from the autonomous nervous system. Since we're in town, we use a pellet gun. Maybe that's why we get more movement. The lights are out, but, like the proverbial "chicken with its head cut off", the body takes a minute to figure that out. Maybe using the .22 helps shut things down faster. But unless we move, we'll have to stick with the pellet gun, because it makes much less noise.

Good work!
 
Great pictures! The liver looks really clean too!

We've butchered a few rabbits now too, and although my hubby doesn't have a problem with the tendon on the back legs, his problem area is the head. We actually break the neck, because I like to keep the head, and as much of the blood as possible. I'm grinding rabbit for the kitties, I use the head right in my mix, and hubby complains all the time about it. It's tough to get the skin over the head without cutting into something, and losing alot of blood, plus it adds alot of time to the process.
 
BoxerMom":350kto6a said:
What were the live weights on the two rabbits you butchered?
Click to expand...

I wish I knew the answer to that!!! I don't have a scale yet, but plan on getting a digital food scale so I can take measurements of my baby buns as they grow. My larger NZ doe who was 7 months old was at least 6.5 pounds dressed weight.
 
Great job! My first one took me a few hours to complete, one, I had no clue what I was doing, and two, because it really freaked me out. An hour for two is great!

(I am much better now, lol)
 
i processed 5 yesterday... and im really struggling with the "poop shoot" area.. whats the trick?? i strung them up like you did... i have everything down easy except for that one little area.. do you try to cut out that pelvic area completely? or what do you do?
 
Thundrr, are you trying to cut up the carcass while it is still hanging? You might find it easier on a flat surface. You have a couple of options. You can cut through the pelvic bone with scissors, giving access to the "poop chute" or you can remove the hind legs taking as much meat as you can and then sever the spine just where the pelvic region meets the loin. There is really very little meat left on the pelvic region at this point and you can just discard it.
 
no im not trying to cut it up at this point... its when i have it hanging by its back feet.. belly toward me.. what process do you go thru in order to take the "shoot" our without cutting it...
 
Hi Thundrr,

I cut the skin around both the tail and the anal-genital area and leave that intact at frist. Then I skin. When I start gutting I cut the abdominal muscles then I snip the pelvic bone then disconnect the tail from the rest of the spine. At that point I spread the pelvis and the tail-genital area can be pulled out in one peice.
 
Jamie Dog Trainer gave a nice short version but i already typed all this so this is the long version! :D

If, while the rabbit is hanging, you run a knife down the center front of the pelvis and score the bone a little, then you can bend the pelvis backward...like put your thumbs on the inside of the rabbits thighs and your fingers on the back of the rump and just open that place--the bone is thin and will break. Inside will be the intestine and a few tiny muscles. cut thru the muscles and not the intestine(if you goof it will be ok--just play catch and grab out the end of the intestine and get if free of the body cavity)...then you can cut around the tail on the back side, severing the spine and pull the tail and anus and all forward and down and out of the gut cavity.

Before I split the pelvis, I usually open the abdomen. That way when I take the tail and intestines out I can be sure of not puncturing or tearing the bladder, and everything stays nice and clean.
 
Yup, that is how we did it. It works really well. I cut the skin around the tail/genital area and go ahead and skin it. Then open the abdomen, cut thru the pelvis with a small pair of shears, cut tail at the base and then trim out the "chute" and discard with the rest of the innards!
 
That was very informitive. I will be doing a few in about a month. We have 7 kits but I think I might hang on to one doe not sure yet. Thank you for shareing.
 

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