How to Raise and Butcher Meat Rabbits: COMPLETE GUIDE

By popular request from my TikTok following, here’s an in-depth video about how to dispatch and butcher meat rabbits using the best methods I have found. I also go into the basics of raising meat rabbits and give a sneak peak into my rabbit colony setup.

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here is everything you need to know about butchering meat rabbits I’m out in my rabbit Colony right now many people have seen my rabbit set up on my other social medias this is a video by popular request though and fair warning right now you’re going to see animals get butchered in this video if you have a problem with that click away right now now I have three rabbits that are past due for butchering I let them grow a little bit bigger just so they’ have better fur because I raise for meat and fur real quickly I’m going to go over the basics of how to raise meat rabbits it’s far simpler than you might think as far as their care they’re as easy to take care of as chickens if you want to be I spend a little more time and from Spring through fall I feed them an entirely natural diet of fresh plants from my yard but the most simple way to raise them goes like this you purchase one Buck a buck refers to a male rabbit who will do the breeding and you purchase one or two Do’s with one buck and two do that’s commonly called a trio and you never really need more than one Buck unless you want different genetics in your rabbits one Buck can easily service over 20 Do’s so unless you have a huge operation just stick with one Buck now this Trio of rabbits will do all the breeding for you you can go ahead and name them they can get really used to you you can treat them like pets just remember their purpose is to be livestock though and so when it comes to all their babies they’re being raised for meat and this is a difficult thing for a lot of people when it comes time for butchering rabbits are cuter than chickens so people have a harder time with it emotionally and that’s the only reason I think rabbits are any harder than chickens the care is all the same feed them once a day make sure they have water and they mostly take care of themselves unlike Cornish cross they have really good survival rates but because they’re a cute mammal butchering can be emotionally difficult and any losses you have are a little harder than if you’re raising meat chickens make sure they have lots of clean bedding constant access to fresh water and constant hay and pellets rabbit’s digestive systems work in a way that they always need food going through it so if you give them free access to Hay that keeps their digestion going pelleted rabbit feed is usually alphalpha based it has some grain byproducts in it and minerals and vitamins added so it’s complete food technically you can give them just a complete pellet but that can be kind of expensive so you can cut feed costs a little bit by giving giving them free access to Hay because hay is cheaper per pound especially if you’re getting it directly from the farmers like I do 60 lb bail can be as cheap as $11 for organic grass hay not the Far Cry cheaper than rabbit pellet which can be between 30 cents a pound to a dollar a pound if you get the really high-end stuff and the last really important thing is make sure they have places to hide I make these underground burrows for them because they stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter so it helps them regulate their temperature a bit better especially for the babies that’s usually where they’ll go and give birth in a colony set like I use the do’s control the breeding if they don’t want to breed they’re not going to let the buck Mount them and they’ll chase him off and make sure he gets it in a colony you can keep the buck with the do all the time a good Buck isn’t going to harm the babies my buck is an excellent father to them he’s usually seen napping and snuggling up with them when babies are born the mother’s going to take care of them they’ll drink milk from their mother for about four weeks and then they’ll start eating solid foods once the rabbits reach 8 weeks of age I start weighing them and it’s usually by 12 Weeks that they reach 5 lbs and that’s when I butcher them sometimes I’ll raise them a little bit older to get thicker skin for their fur but most often I butcher them at that 12we Mark depending on the genetics of your rabbit and the sort of feed you’re giving them they might reach 5 PBS sooner than that and when it comes to butchering they’re physically much easier to butcher than a chicken but emotionally harder the emotional aspect is just because of how cute they are if you’ve ever plucked a chicken you know how much of a chore that is there nothing like that with a rabbit you just make a couple cuts in the skin and pull the whole skin off like a tube once you’re fast at it you can do each rabbit in under 5 minutes from a 5B rabbit you can get three and a half or four pounds of meat with the bone some breeds have a better meat to Bone ratio than others and the meat itself I’m often asked how it tastes and really it just tastes like chicken it has a slightly earthier flavor kind of like chicken thigh it’s a little bit more lean than chicken breast the texture is slightly different it tends to be a little more firm my favorite ways to cook them are to brine the rabbits and then slow roast them or I’ll debone a whole rabbit and grind it up into sausage and that’s become a new favorite recently I want to do some more experimenting with ground rabbit jerky too but as a rule of thumb you can pretty much replace rabbit in any chicken recipe all right let’s get to butchering I like to do my butchering in front of my chicken run chickens like eating any blood that drips I give them the guts any organs I don’t eat any trimming that come off the rabbits usually go straight to the chickens or to my dog that’s great nothing’s going to waste the chickens recycle that directly into eggs and I save all the organ Meats for myself that being the liver kidneys and heart now for the butchering here you’re going to need a way to hang the rabbits this rope has a loop on either end it hooks onto their back legs then this stick just acts as a spacer keep their legs spread while I skin them I keep a table here to put the cleaned rabbits and organs on and a bucket of clean water to rinse each carcass in they tend to get a little bit of fur on them in the process so having some water helps you get that off you need a sharp knife the sharper the better I sharpen my knife directly before processing rabbits just helps it go through the skin easier makes the whole process safer because sharp knives don’t slip as easily as dle knives so sharpen your knife before you butcher if you need a knife recommendation here’s my own branded knife the sage smoke survival Bushcraft knife it’s an excellent knife for processing animals when you order one it arrives shaving sharp out of the box because I hand sharpen every one before they ship and I keep some Ziploc bags on hand too I’ll put the whole processed carcasses in a bag I can usually fit two per bag then I’ll save the hides in a separate bag and use a small Ziploc for the organ meats and I label everything too that way if I’m going through the freezer months later I know what everything is even if I don’t remember exactly what it was this is called a rabbit tractor I put my grow outs in this sometime especially through the warmer months when the grass and clover are growing well basically mini Colony on Wheels has a tow rope in the front so I can pick it up and roll it and have the rabbits mow my lawn that way I’m not spending nearly as much money on Feed in the winter though it just stays parked right here we got some rabbits that are over 13 weeks old it is high time for them to be butchered do be careful they can kick with those back feet and uh they got some sharp claws all right hey Maverick you can pick up a rabbit by the Scruff of the neck I like to pin their legs get them close to my body to handle rabbits that aren’t Keen to be handled and wear thick clothing cuz they can kick K pretty hard this method of dispatching a rabbit is called the broomstick method put your rabbit on the ground get him nice and calm if you pet a rabbit’s ears directly onto its back it tends to calm him down never like doing this part take a sturdy round Branch or a broomstick or metal rod works too place it behind the head Maverick get away now grab those back legs right now while the rabbit is still calm all right now quickly I’m going to stand on either side of the stick make sure the head is pinned down well pull the body straight up just like that you’ll feel the pop I can feel total separation of the skull from the spine here and these are just death throws it’s the nervous system firing this rabbit is dead hardly felt it these death throws will stop in a few seconds never a glamorous part of it never like doing this but this is how meat is made there’s our dead rabbit he’s probably closer to six PBS now I specifically breed for this soft brown fur this coat color is called Chestnut Audi it’s what wild rabbits have just like that with one pull lights out now we’ll get them hung up with this rope I just have a couple of slip knots have it hung on this fence post nice and sturdy I can really pull down on this you want to be strong because you really got to pull down on this rabbit to get the skin off the older a rabbit is the harder it is to skin as well young eight-week old rabbits are really easy to skin it’s like taking off a sock almost I tighten that Loop about halfway through the foot not quite to the hawk I use a stick with notches on either end just like this to start off we’re going to cut right above the ankles just through the skin so I’ll pinch the skin make that cut ring it around both directions I don’t want to cut that tendon in in the back it’ll pull the meat with it be careful to just cut the skin makes things easier you’ll get a lot of fur coming off here just try and pull it down keep it off the meat if you can some always gets on the meat that’s why I just rinse it well afterwards try not to grind your knife on the bone either because that will dull your knife quickly ring it all the way around next we’re going to make that cut come down to the crotch I like to cut it right where the white fur and the brown fur meet you can have more control of your knife if you choke up on to the tip like this now don’t reach your fingers over the edge just pinch it like this spread that skin as you cut then do it left-handed that’s always Where It’s Tricky where I really choke up because that makes it a lot safer with your non-dominant hand some people use their dominant hand for both sides and you can I just find it’s an awkward angle so that’s why I just started to learn to be a little ambidextrous with it once both cuts are mostly to the crotch you can actually get your fingers in there and push through the membrane that connects the skin to the muscle there we go I can reach my fingers through I can just cut want that cut to be above the crotch very carefully don’t get my fingers just like that now I’ll go ahead and start peeling the legs and a little harder because this rabbit’s a little older use your knife as little as possible but if you got to separate some membrane or some tendon from the skin go for it there we go both sides coming along well work it down now you can see there’s some good fat on this rabbit that’s good just means it was healthy use your hand to separate that membrane around the back on either side too till you can reach through just like you did in front separate that skin up to the tail I like to cut off the tail you can save it if you can but I’m just going to show how to cut it off in this video along with the genitals you can grab all that at once put your knife in there slice underneath the furry genitals you can turn the rabbit around and cut through the tail find a spot between the bones if you can feel with your knife and then it goes through through easily just like that and it took the anus with it now you’re free to just keep pulling that hide down like I said on a young rabbit it’ll come down much easier on an older rabbit might be a little harder then you get to the arms pull that elbow up and through pop your finger through the membrane on the opposite side of the elbow there we go separate that peel it down to the Paw and then it should just rip like that at try and save the paws they don’t add much to the Pelt same thing on the other side after You’ done this with a couple rabbits it becomes very intuitive and very quick with both Paws free the chickens are getting pretty excited like to peel down to the head a little further now you can skin the face if you want some people like to keep the rabbit mask I just like to get some of that neck skin CU it’s some of the stronger skin just like that and I’ll use the knife just very gently ring around it I don’t want to cut through the fur if I’m not careful I will cut the fur just like this work your way around very carefully there’s our hide free case skinned now the chickens are going to town on that blood that’s good for them you can see where that separation was and the blood and rabbits clots very quickly actually give that clotted blood to the chickens makes good eggs there we go I just butcher these rabbits for my own use for it to be legal to sell you got to jump through a whole bunch of Hoops there’s a bit of the genitals hanging through cut that it to the chickens so where the genitals were coming through insert your knife to get through the belly membrane and at this point we’re really careful not to cut any organs this is the point at which the chickens get a little annoying here we go cut it open all the way to the rib cage I always check out the organs look at the large intestine to see if there’s any worms it’s often transparent enough you can see into it looking pretty good this rabbit had a bit of gas this digestive system probably because I switched feeds pretty abruptly that can shock their digestive system a little separate that large intestine from where it connects to the anus and you can pull all the guts out just like this they’ll separate from the stomach they go straight to the chickens I’ll keep them entertained rabbits have a proportionally large stomach here’s the spleen connected to the stomach like to give that either to the chickens or to my dog here you go Maverick pull that stomach out it’s nice that you don’t really need a knife for most of this there’s the stomach chickens don’t do a lot with that so I’ll just bury that here’s the liver rabbits have a pretty large liver checking it out you don’t want to see any hard yellow spots on the liver if you do it could be a sign of various diseases like coidis or even Taria all the livers I’ve ever butchered from my rabbits have looked healthy here you can see the gallbladder as well the gallbladder is just this little green sack we’ll cut that out and the liver is delicious just fried up with some butter I like to add it into my sausage it’s the most nutritionally dense part of the rabbit give that gallbladder to the chickens there we go that’s a whole rabbit liver here we got the kidneys they should have a healthy amount of fat around them these ones clearly do that’s a great sign pull those out I like to slice them up fry them in butter just like the liver m flavored livering kidneys taste a little beefy which is kind of nice on a on an animal that tastes like chicken this was a male rabbit here’s one of the testies is still inside its body all right we’re looking nice and clean looks like the bladder emptied itself and came out with the genitals now there’s this membrane here just pull that open you’ll get to the lungs and the heart and the thymus gland above that some people like to eat lung I’ve honestly not tried it yet the chicken sure love it here the heart came with it I’ll separate them be careful with the heart because it tends to Splatter blood the heart will slip out of this paracardial sack you can see here in my left hand I’ll give the heart rinse that’s good to add into sausage too last thing up in this chest it’s a gland right against the ribs there we go I believe that’s a thymus gland that’s good for the chickens as well very last internal thing we’ll do here split the pubic bone that way we can pull out the colon see how easily that split all I do is gently press the knife right where the legs meet and rock it side to side and split right through where that connection point is cu it’s just cartilage holding that bone together oh quiet down ladies come on you’ve gotten your fill just using your thumb it’s able to pull out the whole colon that way we’re totally clean no poop now I’ll take the pause off the rabbit to start with take one arm I’m not snapping bones I’m just popping the wrist out of a alignment just like that then you can very easily cut off that paw with no sharp bones just the dull bone ends there do the same on the other one just pull it sideways with a little maneuvering it should separate cut through the tendons you can slip the joints of the hind feet too just like that and I like to cut this tendon a little further down just cuz it’s a big tendon not nice to have in the meat I’ll do an upward cut like this there we go there’s our carcass give it a dunk wipe off that fur and blood there we go that’s our rabbit now I won’t freeze this right away if you do that rigor mortise will set in while it’s in the freezer before it’s frozen and you’ll end up with tougher meat it’s best to wet age this for a few days in the fridge even just overnight will be good the carcass will relax again and then it’s good to freeze so we’ll just put it in a Ziploc bag and put put it in the fridge overnight now I just bury those discard pieces in my garden all the bones break down I’ve buried a lot of rabbits here if you’ve got a big hot compost pile you can compost it but burying is just fine feed your garden if you don’t have a garden then you can just throw it away too so here’s our results one bagged rabbit and here we have the hide and the organ Meats I really recommend saving those organ Meats because that adds a whole another half cup of meat to your yield by butchering a rabbit you feed the chickens get treats for your dogs lots of people will save the ears and the paws of their rabbits as dog treats they don’t need to be processed any further they can just be given fresh or dried I often do that so nothing really goes to waste here except I guess the head and the stomach but those go directly to the garden and just feed next year’s crops feeds the very crops that I use to feed my rabbits so any way set there is all comes full circle may seem like a lot to butcher a rabbit but at least for me it’s a lot easier than butchering a chicken I hope this helps you and I hope you get started in meat rabbits thanks for watching