Processing for the first time tomorrow.

[OneFineAcre]

Bossroo - I respectfully disagree. This is something we have specifically tested at our house. In my experience, the rabbits rested in the fridge are actually worse because the meat tends to dry out prior to freezing. I consistently slaughter and immediately package then freeze. I have not had a single customer complain about tough meat. And we use about 3 a month in our house and never have problems.

I guess that my experience in working for years at a University Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital and necropsying everything from a Killer Whale to a shrew ( including several thousand rabbits used in antibody production / testing/ research ) don't count for much. My bad ! However , I did notice that all animals seamed to become quite stiff mere hours after expiring. To prevent a carcass from drying out, place them in a bowl with water covering the entire carcass then cover tightly with saran wrap. Or, put the carcass in a large plastic baggy with some water added and air squeezed out.

Unless you tell us the killer whale and shrew were tough when you fried it up, I guess it doesn't count much

 

[sawfish99]

I never said the rabbits didn't experience rigor. And I never attacked your resume. I simply said it doesn't matter for the toughness of the meat. This is probably based on the fact that most people cook rabbit is a slow cooking manner because it is so lean in the first place.

I guess my experience slaughtering, selling, cooking, and eating rabbit meat doesn't count either.

Funny thing about experience in life. Sometimes it is different for different folks.

Yes, you can brine or soak the meat when refrigerating. However, that gets challenging when processing 20 rabbits at a time.

 

[cooky]

We always let ours chill for 24 hours before we freeze them but then we haven't done very many yet or tried another way. That's how we've always processed chickens so we just did the same for our rabbits. When we cook them, we either soak in buttermilk and then fry them or we cook them low and slow in a stew. We're getting ready to process some more next week though and we're planning on canning the extra. We'll see how that goes ...

 

[VickieB]

Glenmar, did you get your rabbits processed and if you did, how did it go?

 

[GLENMAR]

My neighbor came over and helped us get started. He used a 22 and shot each one in the back of the head. They went down fast.
I helped skin, and he gutted them. There was a lot of meat. We did 7. I gave him some. I tried some of the scraps that we cut off the bone, while getting them
ready for the freezer. Just fried that up today for a little taste. WOW that was GOOD!!! I did not get any photos, but the back legs were really meaty.

 

[BYJR1434]

smoke em, if you think rabbits good now, wait till you smoke it.

 

[bj taylor]

excuse me for jumping in on this thread. I just read it all. I've never raised rabbits, but am seriously interested. when you say your friend shot them w/a 22, do you mean a pistol or rifle? i'm sorry if this question is remarkably ignorant, but the killing part is the part that has me stumped - whether chickens, goats, rabbits.
thanks a lot

 

[GLENMAR]

rifle

 

[shan777]

Bossroo - I respectfully disagree. This is something we have specifically tested at our house. In my experience, the rabbits rested in the fridge are actually worse because the meat tends to dry out prior to freezing. I consistently slaughter and immediately package then freeze. I have not had a single customer complain about tough meat. And we use about 3 a month in our house and never have problems.

I guess that my experience in working for years at a University Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital and necropsying everything from a Killer Whale to a shrew ( including several thousand rabbits used in antibody production / testing/ research ) don't count for much. My bad ! However , I did notice that all animals seamed to become quite stiff mere hours after expiring. To prevent a carcass from drying out, place them in a bowl with water covering the entire carcass then cover tightly with saran wrap. Or, put the carcass in a large plastic baggy with some water added and air squeezed out.

Thanks for the Resume outline, I now listen to your argument the most. ( high levels of sarcasm may be present here)

 

[BHOBCFarms]

Maybe the freezing is the reason no one is complaining about toughness.... Freezing burst cells, makes things mooshy, etc... Just a thought for all of you "right fighters", perhaps NO one is wrong, just different methods, different results. That said, I have always heard that resting meat is typical....