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DevonW

DevonW

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Barrie Ontario
I processed a Mini Rex doe yesterday. she was 3lbs 6oz and 8 months old. I also tested out a new pair of poultry shears which will never be used again because they were dull as heck. Also to count how many ribs a rabbit had for another forum, because there seems to be a dilemma whether they have 24 or 26. I counted 24.

Sat her in a strainer for about an hour to let excess water drip off. The entire time she twitched madly. And the little nub left of the tail um was wagging. I don't know if it's bad to be amused? Anyways by the time I took a video it wasn't as pronounced as it was earlier. But you can see the tail uh wag...

(don't watch if you don't want to see a twitching rabbit carcass)
http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/aa86/DevonGlen_minirex/videos/?action=view&current=MAH07513.mp4
 
I remember years ago, butchering young Californians - meat in a bowl, completely cut up, still moving.

It's the intestines squirming in the "gut bucket" that kind of give me the willies! :p
 
I wish I knew why that happens sometimes. I haven't seen it often and thankfully not until I knew it was common--imagine that being your first butchering experience!
 
One time (long, long ago in a galaxy far far away) my then husband and I went camping. There were a lot of water snakes around. Not venomous but they can give you a nasty bite if provoked. Big macho man decides he wants a skin for his hatband... He had one of those leather hats. So he kills a huge water snake and skins it, then tossed the headless carcass in the lake. It swam away with the stump of its neck held out of the water. Now that was creepy. Then he put the skin folded in a deep pocket. Later it was mysteriously gone. I figure it crawled away.
 
Half Caper Farm":1f43zuj2 said:
I remember years ago, butchering young Californians - meat in a bowl, completely cut up, still moving.

It's the intestines squirming in the "gut bucket" that kind of give me the willies! :p
Click to expand...


oooooh I've had that one the intestines were all roiling around in the bucket talk about creepy :x
 
:lol: Yeah, that's a little more pronounced than ours so far. Though the inside-out skin of one was very active last weekend. I didn't think to take a video, though.

We got some catfish freshly killed and filleted for a friend. When we got to her house, we opened the ice chest, and the fillets were still twitching.
 
I know JUST the right person to forward that video to!!!The water dripping on the chest looks like the carcass is still breathing, too...

__________ Sun Feb 27, 2011 11:09 am __________

eco2pia":199xcu5w said:
I wish I knew why that happens sometimes. I haven't seen it often and thankfully not until I knew it was common--imagine that being your first butchering experience!
Click to expand...
It is a reflexive action caused by nerve stimulation. In reflexive movements,the nerve pathway makes a U turn at the spine to tell the muscles to 'get the heck away" while a secndary set of signals goes to the brain to say "why" we are jumping away from something. AS the muscles lose stored oxygen and nutrients, the twitches slow down and stop. Anyone ever do the frog leg muscle experiment?
 
Yup, I've had a few carcasses put in the fridge after butchering, head off, skin, feet and tail off and fully gutted and still twitching.

I started butchering one once, head off and hung up when I saw the belly twitching. I had a terrible sick feeling that I had butchered a pregnant doe and you have no idea how horrified I was as I cut the belly open to see. Turns out it was just the belly flaps twitching but I was so upset for a couple of minutes that I actually felt sick until I found out what it was.
 
Oh, goodness, Truckinguy, I think that would have greatly upset me, too! I'm glad it turned out to be just nervous system twitching. :shock:
 
OHHH the snake thing yikes!!! A friend on facebook posted a video of a rattlesnake they had butchered for dinner... that was freaky, a skinned and gut headless snake going into a strike pose!!!
 
Frosted Rabbits":146ktkcc said:
It is a reflexive action caused by nerve stimulation. In reflexive movements,the nerve pathway makes a U turn at the spine to tell the muscles to 'get the heck away" while a secndary set of signals goes to the brain to say "why" we are jumping away from something. AS the muscles lose stored oxygen and nutrients, the twitches slow down and stop. Anyone ever do the frog leg muscle experiment?
Click to expand...

Yeah I understand that, but I wonder why I can butcher 12 rabbits the same way and have just one continue to twitch? Is it something I am doing inadvertantly differently, I wonder....
 
eco2pia":365in52k said:
I wonder why I can butcher 12 rabbits the same way and have just one continue to twitch? Is it something I am doing inadvertantly differently, I wonder....
Click to expand...
Maybe it has something to do with the method used to slaughter. We use a pellet gun, and I have to let the hind legs stop doing their reflexive thing before I can hang the rabbit up. But then... the body has suddenly lost contact with the brain, and so the nerve impulses just go haywire. I saw a video of someone who stunned the rabbit by bopping it, hung it up, and then slit the neck to let the blood drain (kosher method). I never saw any twitching. But, then again, I didn't see it after it was skinned and such. Maybe it twitched, too.
 
Um, yeah, I bop then kill (I know my bopping technique isn't there, but, hey they never know about the pellet)
I've had them twitch after bopping, but never the pellet, also you should aim for the top of the spinal cord.
 
Do you think breaking the neck(spine) keeps the twitching to a minimum? Any broomstickers care to weigh in? My bopping technique(I like Jack's phrase) usually breaks the neck in addition to a solid crunch to the back of the skull. I seem to have had fairly few twitchers...for which I am thankful, and I would like to keep it that way. Most of mine barely kick once. Maybe this needs it's own topic...
 
I use the broomstick method, as we can clearly see with the tail wagging wonder on the previous page... it doesn't keep the twitching to a minimum
 
Jack":275rlpw4 said:
you should aim for the top of the spinal cord.
Click to expand...
Shay holds the muzzle to the back of the head, between the ears and down a little, just below where the spine meets the skull. That should be the top of the spinal cord. Yet, every one of ours has twitched to varying degrees, right on up to being packaged.
 
Maybe different lines of rabbits are just "wired" differently. So you end up with whole rabbitries that have the twitches, and others that don't?

:hmm: It'll be interesting to see what happens when we butcher Fluffy's first litter. Not entirely a separate line, since we're using the same buck, but she's from outside the gene pool here.
 

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