We have sat around several times discussing that we should really be more intentional about making posts to this blog we created and for whatever reason "life" gets in the way. Tonight we decided that we will be doing mass postings of all our latest adventures.
Rabbits!
The rabbits are GONE! I guess gone isn't the appropriate word. Parts of them are still in the freezer. We came to the decision to go ahead an slaughter the rabbits because of the plans we have this winter. Our plan was to "start over" after January. After you read the entire story, you will see why that was the plan!
The first rabbit was chosen because of her attitude. She really was a mean little something. Kal took her out of the cage after donning his mechanics gloves. She had a reputation of being a bit bitey and aggressively violent. After exiting the cage, Lincoln thought it would be the perfect opportunity to have a bite, of her. She wasn't pleased. We are not sure if you are aware, but rabbits scream. Like little girls with a terrifying squeal. It was not pleasant. With that, she was even meaner than normal so Kal decided to just get it over with and break her neck. He was tugging and pulling. He "thought" he did the job! That was until the rabbit was hung up on our "resourceful quad-pod". He cut her throat and that is when the flailing began. We anticipated the blood drain so we had a pail in place. Too bad blood doesn't stream straight down when the poor rabbit isn't actually dead and is flopping around dying a messy death. Lesson learned. Do not attempt to snap the neck of rabbit without professional viewing in person. YouTube made it look simple! It was not. Becca watched a YouTube video as well about the broomstick method. We decided to give it a go. We found a small (but long) metal pipe. Kal picked the second rabbit. He came out of his cage fairly nicely. He was held upside down until he calmed. This is because all the blood was rushing to his head. Once calm, he was laid on the ground with his front feet and head in front of the pipe. Becca and Sadie stepped, gently, on the pipe and Kal gave a good pull and the neck was snapped and the rabbit was dead. SIMPLE! This rabbit was then hung on the "resourceful quad-pod" and throat cut, skinned and put in a pot. The third rabbit went just as well as the second rabbit. Below are the photos of this adventure.
Here are the rabbits from when we first got them.
Rabbit number one hanging from the "resourceful quad-pod"
Cut the throat to drain all the blood.
Realizing that the rabbit wasn't dead and it flopping around, getting blood everywhere, Kal was holding it until it finished dying and bleeding out.
Starting to skin, cut around a leg, not too deep as you do not want to cut the tendons, and pull the skin down.
Continuing to pull. Dislocating the tail is needed in order to remove the skin.
After the skin is pulled all the way down to the neck, the front legs need to be pulled to the foot. Once at the foot, the tissue around the foot is cut and the foot is broken off.
After the feet are removed, the head is then removed.
The process of removing the front feet is then repeated on the back feet. Making sure to have someone to hold or your rabbit will be hitting the ground.
And there you have it, a fully skinned rabbit, ready for a pot!
This is the "bucket o bits" or "gut bucket"! This is a must, you don't want that stuff hanging out in your grass! Don't worry if you spill some, your dog will eat it. You have a dog right???
This rabbit is number two and truly dead before starting. Sadie was a little concerned that it would start flopping. It did not. We learned!
This is the broomstick method. Use this. You don't need the pipe, you can use a broomstick!
Three rabbits in a pot!
Chopping them up into pieces for cooking.
Kal giving a little kiss. Really it was to make Lincoln jealous. He really wanted to eat that. He did! He was such a happy dog!
That is basically it. I made a really yummy bacon and sour cream sauce (That will be yummy to repeat on some other kind of meat later) and we ate a rabbit that night.
Lilly LOVED it, Kal said it was okay, Sadie said it wasn't terrible but it wasn't good, Gabriel cried he hated it so much and Becca threw up in the trash can. So 2.5 of us really never want to eat rabbit again. We no longer have a rabbit hutch. The very next day, we traded the rabbit hutch for a bow and 12 arrows for Kal. It was a great trade.
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