Butchering Days: Rabbits and Chickens

I don't have a lot of pictures from these activities because I am usually a big mess and it is not something that I enjoy doing.  It is sad and stressful, but I know that all my animals are treated much more humanely than commercially raised ones. They just have this one bad day. We try to remember the sacrifice that comes with eating meat and do not waste any part of it. Even the heads, innards, and tails that people normally don't consume we use to feed our dogs and cats.  We grow about 80-90% of the meat that we eat. We don't eat beef generally and only consume about one rabbit or one chicken per week to feed our family of six. I use bits of ham or bacon as flavoring, but in general I try to prepare as many plant based meals as possible.

 Here I am getting set-up for the big meat chicken butchering day. We tested out a new propane heating system for the scalding pot. It worked great and I think it will be extremely helpful when we do the bigger birds in November (turkeys) and December (geese). I am selling turkeys and geese for the holidays. My neighbors brought their birds and I did ours. Working together it took about 6 hours to do the 40 birds -- that is pretty slow, but this was their first time butchering so I think it was great.

Elders and neighbors came (again) to learn and help butcher rabbits over Labor day weekend.