ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS > FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE
Dispatching Breeder Rabbits
The15thMember:
As many of you know, my family raises meat rabbits, and we are going to be switching from New Zealands to Silver Foxes, so we are going to butcher our breeder rabbits along with our final litter of New Zealands next weekend. For our young rabbits, we use a kill board to dispatch them, where you put their neck into a groove cut into a piece of wood mounted on the wall, give a quick yank on their legs, and it separates the spinal cord below the skull. We are concerned however that this method won't work well with the older breeder rabbits, as they are bigger and more difficult to restrain and have more developed bone structure than the 12 week old ones we typically butcher. Does anyone have experience dispatching older rabbits? Will the kill board still work for them? If not, what is the best method?
animal:
This video has 2 or 3 methods demonstrated.
My grandad used basically the same as what the video calls a "karate chop". The difference was that he used a tire billy (a short club for checking tires). He would also kill at least 50-100 at a time. I've used the chin push thing, also in the video, but only on wild rabbits which are probably much smaller than your breeders(and they will try to bite).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOnkVbcYXRQ
The15thMember:
Thanks. We've been talking about it and honestly, we think we are going to be more comfortable shooting them. My mom saw a video where someone just set them in a cardboard box or a plastic bin and shot them with a pellet gun or a very high powered BB gun. We don't have either of those guns, so we'd probably have to use our .22. It's probably a little much, but as Brandon Sheard from the Homestead Meatsmith says, "On butchering day, there is no such thing as overkill when it comes to the kill." Any advice along the lines of shooting them instead would be welcome.
animal:
In that case, maybe a .22 short out of a revolver, bore contacted to the rear base of the skull aimed at the brainstem / cerebellum.
but ... I'm a gun nut, and I'd still use a 1' - 1' 6" club (piece of axe handle or 3/4" steel pipe or something like that) or do it by hand. Gunshots aren't a magic kill .. unless it's a .50BMG (sick joke and pretty much true)
(rabbit screams kinda get to me and I like the fuzzy little buggers, so I try to err on the side of quick, sure kill. Using a gun in this situation can be a little tricky)
good luck, be safe, and try to not let your dinner suffer. :smile:
The15thMember:
--- Quote from: animal on October 06, 2023, 07:41:02 pm ---Using a gun in this situation can be a little tricky
--- End quote ---
What specifically about it would be tricky? Everyone except my dad is pretty new to guns, and he's no expert either, but we do butcher our own goats, so we know what it's like with a larger animal, but not a small one.
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