Life and Death

A winter sun rises on a difficult day

We bought some breeding rabbits, housed them, fed them, cared for them and then it was time to kill and eat them. They went from squiggly little grub-like babies to cute fuzzy bunnies hopping about, to fully grown rabbits.

The day was cloudy but not cold with plenty of snow on the ground. We had decided today was the day as the rabbits were big enough to eat now and the weather lately had meant that it was taking more and more work to care for them, not to mention, we were going through expensive feed like crazy. The mother rabbits were due to kindle in a week and there simply was no longer room for these grown rabbits.

Just getting over a cold, I joined my husband outside after he had killed the five rabbits and he had them laying in a row in the snow to keep them cool. After a failed attempt at trying to gut them on a table, which was really hard on the ol' back, I got some rope, and using the wood beams of the wood shelter, we strung them up by the feet.

The start was slow at first as we struggled to remember everything we had read or seen from You Tube videos an the Internet.  I went back to the house to watch yet another video that showed how exactly to cut off the skin. After a bit of back and fourth discussion we figured it out. With a sharp knife and a pair of good scissors, it wasn't long before he had finished. The skin comes off rather like pulling a sweater off, inside-out and the meat looks like fresh skinless chicken breast, pink and shiny. There wasn't much blood and it sure was nice not to have to pluck feathers!

Later, inside we rinsed them off, cut them up into pieces, covered them and put them in the fridge to rest. A couple of nights later, we bagged them and put them into the deep freeze. They look and feel just like chicken breast and it is difficult to tell the bags apart in the freezer.

Last weekend we finally tasted them in our favorite curry recipe. I had never tasted rabbit before and was worried it would be strong tasting but really I would have thought it was chicken if I didn't know the difference. It was difficult to eat them at first, having cared for and cuddled them but it was a relief to know at least, taste wise, they were easy to eat. As we have welcomed our newest litter of cute rabbit kits into the world, I am hopeful it will all get a little easier.