Slaughtering Rabbits

(Do you still need to kill the rabbit?
Go to Harvest A Rabbit for directions on how best to kill a rabbit.)

Equipment:
Set yourself up for slaughtering rabbits with these tools:

• Very sharp skinning knife

• Steel or knife sharpener

• Heavy shears, such as sold in the garden department

• 5-gallon bucket for water. Fill it close to the top. Slaughtering rabbits can get messy - you'll want a lot of water for cleaning hands and knife. Set the bucket on a chair, step stool or bench to raise it to a comfortable working level.

• A large square, possibly plastic, container, such as a dish pan, for collecting the innards as they drop. Depending on the size of the container and the number of rabbits to butcher, you may need to empty this container now and again, into a large plastic garbage bag.

• Hose with nozzle, for cleaning up the blood and mess from slaughtering rabbits.

• Heavy freezer bags or vacuum-packing machine.

Slaughtering Rabbits:
How to remove the pelt without damaging it.

2) Work your fingers in between the pelt and the meat, releasing the pelt from the thigh. Work the skin loose up to the hock, as high as possible. See Picture 2.

3) Repeat on other leg.

4) Insert knife with blade up, and cut the pelt at the hocks on both legs. See Picture 3.

5) Insert your finger(s) between skin and belly at the groin, until your fingers can be seen at the second cut at the other side of the belly.
See Picture 4.

6) Removing fingers, insert knife into the same space and cut up and outward, cutting the pelt free of the groin area.

7) Now you can pull the pelt downward, loosening it from the carcass with your fingers, as needed. You’ll be able to pull downward as far as the tail.

8) With the skin pulled downward, insert your fingers under the skin below the tail, loosening the pelt from the back beside the tail.

9) Remove your fingers and insert the knife into the same space, and cut the pelt loose from the tail, as close to the tail as possible if you’re saving the pelt. See Picture 5.

10) Pull the pelt downward, freeing it from the meat with your fingers as needed, pulling it down and over the neck like you would a T-shirt. The pelt will be turning itself inside out as you pull it downward.See Picture 6.

11) Loosen and release the pelt from the neck area. Since the head is gone, soon the pelt will be attached only at the front paws.

12) Cut the pelt free of the paws. Cut on the skin side only and avoid cutting any fur if you plan to use the pelt. At this point, you've already finished the most time-consuming part of slaughtering rabbits.

Slaughtering Rabbits:
How to clean the rabbit carcass.

2) Insert two fingers into the cut. Pulling outward a bit, insert knife, blade down, between your fingers. Cut downward, sliding your fingers downward with the knife, keeping the innards away from the edge of the blade. You only want to cut the abdominal wall. Cut down to the ribcage. The innards will fall outward a bit. See Pictures 8 and 9, on the left below.


3) Grasp the tail with the groin region and pull firmly to one side. Locate the pelvic joint. In picture 10, on the far right, the butcher is holding tail, groin and left thigh in his hand. You're looking for the cartilage that joins both sides of the pelvis at the midline under the groin organs. It is less than an inch long; in the picture it is just under the blade edge of the knife. With controlled pressure from the blade edge, turn the knife blade down and press inward along the length of the joint. The cartilage should cut fairly easily. Ideally, the blade will separate the pelvic joint without cutting through to the rectum, which is directly under the pelvic joint.

4) Grasp both thighs and bend them backward. This will spread the severed pelvic joint. You will be able to see if you need to carefully cut any other tissues alongside the intestines.

5) Grasping the tail and groin once again, pull it all forward toward you, locating a joint in the tail bones.

6) Cut through this joint, severing the tail from the body. Again, take care to not cut so deep as to sever the rectum. See Picture 11, above at left.

7) This should release the tail and groin into your hand. Pull the entire groin area downward. The tail and intestines will now pull free, and you can let it dangle free with the rest of the entrails. See Picture 12, above at right.

8) Separate the innards from the liver. Everything should be falling outward except for the stomach, which is attached to the esophagus. Cut the stomach free of tissues and blood vessels. If you leave it attached to the esophagus and pull snugly, you may be able to pull the esophagus free of the neck, and the whole works will fall into the bucket below the carcass.

9) Remove the kidneys along with the surrounding fat. There’s a membrane around all that fat - with a little care, you can pull it all out without leaving globs of fat in the carcass.

10) Gather up the liver carefully in your hand and cut it free.
See Picture 13, above.

11) You’ll easily locate the gallbladder, a small sac filled with a lot, or just a little, green gall. You’ll also easily spot the gallbladder duct attaching the gallbladder to the liver. Pinch the duct (not the gallbladder) between a thumb and finger (See Picture 14, right) and pull it free from the liver. Drop it into the bucket.

Very important: Once you pinch the duct and pull, you must not release your pressure on the duct until discarding it. The gall is extremely bitter, and should you lacerate the gallbladder or allow any of the gall to spill, it will ruin anything it spills on. The bitter taste is next to impossible to rinse off.

12) You’re almost done. Cut through the rib cage close to one side of the breastbone. This requires only moderate pressure on the blade. Spread the ribcage and cut the rabbit's diaphragm - the membrane covering the lungs.

13) Pull the lungs and the heart out of the chest cavity. Hopefully the trachea will come with them.

14) Pull (or cut) the heart away from the lungs.

15) Use a strong shears to cut off the front paws. See Picture 15, right. Finish cutting any remaining tendons with the knife.

16) Use the shears to cut the hind feet. Ideally the carcass will continue to hang by tendons, and you can cut the last tendon loose with the knife while holding the carcass with the other hand.

There, you have one rabbit carcass in hand! The whole butchering process should take between 15 - 20 minutes, until you get really good at it.

Besides the carcass and pelt, we save the heart and the liver. Some folks might like the kidneys as well.

The rest of the innards can be offered to your dog or cat.

Slaughtering Rabbits:
How to cut up the rabbit carcass.

• Separate the front limbs from the rib cage.

• Separate the hind limbs from the back

• Cut through the backstrap to separate the rib section from the back. With the meat cut, snap and break the back, dislocating it at the cut. Then it is easy to cut free.

• Bend the ribcage outward, and cut into its two sides.

• Cut the last strip - the back - in the middle. Cut the muscle and snap the back in two in order to cut through the joint.

You're just about done slaughtering rabbits. Now all that's left is...

Finishing the job.

1) Soak the carcasses in a sink full of cold salted water (2 tablespoons per sink full) for about a half-hour. This removes body temperature and helps dissipate the blood from the carcass. Rinse. Seal in freezer bags what you don't intend to use immediately, and freeze.

2) Rinse the livers and hearts. Place in freezer bags and freeze the parts you don't intend to use immediately. If you feed a raw diet to your animals, don't forget to give your animals a heart and liver for every carcass you feed them. The liver is rich in nutrients and vitamins necessary for animal health.

3) Pay attention to the pelts you intend to use:

• Thoroughly rinse the blood out of the pelts, place the pelts on pelt stretchers and dry in a vermin-free environment.

• Or, thoroughly rinse the blood out of the pelts, and begin the tanning process by placing them into the tanning brine.

  You'll find a couple pelt-tanning recipes here.

• Or, thoroughly rinse the blood out of the pelts, squeeze the extra liquid out of the pelts (without wringing), place the pelts into freezer bags and freeze until ready to tan.

Slaughtering rabbits gives nutritious meals to both your family and your animals. Acquire enough pelts, and you can stay warm through the winter by creating blankets, jackets, mittens, mukluks, caps, and more. Slaughtering rabbits takes you many steps forward along the path to health, self-sufficiency and survival preparedness.

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