01/29/2026
This past weeks lessons:
1. Always have a butcher date
2. Make sure you butcher on said date
We've had rabbits that needed processed for way longer than I care to admit. We moved. We had a baby. Life kept moving on, and at the time, they were mowing down the garden space really well in their tractors, so, no big hurry minus the feed cost. But when you have more rabbits in the wings waiting for tractors, and a polar vortex coming to town, things get nitty gritty real fast.
I dispatched 32 rabbits on the Friday the storm was to hit while it was 9 degrees, then 6, then 4; guys, it got cold. Then, Friday night the hubs and I stayed up until 4 a.m. processing as many as we could. Then my Saturday was consumed with the rest. Then breaking down the rabbits to primals. THEN deboning everything because the plans for this round of rabbits is to grind for breakfast sausage, brats, and possibly deli meat- minus back straps which will become nuggets.
It was a lot of work. I just finished with cleaning up the back straps and bagging nuggs.
Want to know what the breakdown was?
For 32 rabbits we got:
•38 pounds of meat to grind
•9 pounds of nuggets
•23 pounds of dog food (this is excess fat, trim, some bone, and unfortunately some meat that was in contact with organs too long)
•5 lbs of organ meat (also for the dog)
•Probably 4-5 gallons of rabbit stock for cooking with
•All the bones and leftover bits from stock was given to the birds for an extra protein boost in this cold weather
•64 hind feet for eventual key chains
•32 tails for cat toys and key chains
•64 ears and 64 front stumps to dehydrate for dog treats
•32 heads to eventually deflesh and use for craft or maybe sell
•32 hides to add to my collection for future projects
The only thing that went to "waste" were the stomach and intestines, but even the dog and cats have nibbled on those.
We've been trying since the beginning to utilize as much as possible of every animal we raise and put in our freezer because we feel like we owe it to them, as stewards, to utilize every bit we can and not waste the gifts they gave us.
Being a caretaker is wild. Having that load of stress off my mind is so nice. After this cold stretch, we will move more young rabbits into the tractors, they will be processed NEXT month. Then another batch in April. And they WILL be processed lol
