Another first!

For the last week I had been psyching myself up to the task of killing and butchering our bunnies.
Cut off date, no pun intended, was going to be Tuesday, the children's first day back at school, and I would have the whole day to get it done and myself sorted. Remembering how the first chicken went down, I definitely didn't want the kids around.

Unfortunately we had a VERY bad start to the day, and with a few other things happening as well, I was feeling way to fragile to commit murder. Instead I got the house sorted and set the next day.

So, what happened today? After procrastinating for most of the morning, I realized I was struggling to make the decision who would be the number One! Considering that 7 would have to go, that seemed a silly reason to delay, and I got started: cleaned my work bench, sharpened utensils and went down. And it came down who was the first one to let me pick him up without a major struggle: I don't want to have a bucket load of adrenalin going through the body in the last moments.

Took him away from the enclosure, I have this idea that the other animals can sense death, and don't want to taint their "home" with it, and proceeded with the broomstick method. I won't go into details here, but I found a wonderful web site with very detailed, but not gory images, which showed EVERY step! Surprisingly it went very well, and I then skinned and gutted the rabbit.

All in all it took me just over an hour, and considering it was a first I'm quite pleased with that result.
Also, I'm hugely relieved that my mental barriers haven't been raised.
Now I'm researching recipes: I don't want to do anything too exotic, but at the same time I want to use ingredients that complement the meat. And will be tasty enough for the kids to try!
So, with the meat resting in the fridge for 24 hours and the skin freezing for further use I think I will rest on my laurels for today.