Run, rabbit, run
Posted: Sunday 7 May, 2006
On Friday, Dan became the proud owner of a new air rifle, with which he intends to curb the local rabbit population. When he gets time, no doubt he will post something technical. As usual, the web was a great source of information.
Dan never does things by halves, which is one of the things I love about him. Killing things isn't something he relishes but he is determined to ensure that he at least ensures a swift death. So he had sheets of paper with a drawing of a rabbit to use as a target and spent Saturday morning setting up the sights on the rifle and practising. After an hour or so, he was scoring head shots the vast majority of the time. I suggested that we could pin the tattered paper target to our boundary fence with a warning to rabbits "This could be you!". Actually, the rabbits round here are so brazen that he coudl probably club them with the rifle butt and save pellets! (Joke)
Anyway, when I came back from the stables, we were two rabbits less, despatched by one head shot each. Dan said he was worried that he hadn't made a clean kill when the victim twitched a lot, but an investigation on the web confirmed that this was quite normal because of the high level of energy in the muscles.
We didn't keep these two, but I now need to learn how to clean them. Either we'll eat them or the dogs and cats will. Either way, the bunnies will not die in vain.
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Comments
Dan
Hehe, I'm not much of a psycho either. :o)
It's not something I do with a great deal of pleasure, but they are doing serious damage to our land now. We did investigate getting them gassed, but it's very expensive and a tad drastic. We've had some locals down with ferrets and nets, but they drew a blank - the rabbits are coming from neighbouring scrubland which is covered in brambles and so impossible to net.
The aim is to control the population so that they don't feel the need to dig holes in our land or eat anything that grows, not to eradicate them. Hence the gun - cost effective, plus we get some nice meat.
Elwin Molenaar
Well yeah, gassing doesn't sound nice either, lol
Umm another question did you get my email about maybe a visit to your "farm"?
Elwin
Dan
Elwin, I've taken this to email.
Elwin Molenaar
I tried to reply but I got an error: dan@championinternet.com
Delivery failed
550 Unrouteable address
Help?? :o)
Andrew@ThreeElms
I use a similar method over here to keep rabbits under control, except I used a .22 or 12ga, but the results are similar. Out here it's mostly Cotton Tails, not sure how that compares to yours.
Skinning and cleaning rabbits is pretty easy. I raise domestic meat rabbits so I'm used to it, but it's under 5 mins/animal from start to finish. If you can't find anything online let me know and I can write up some directions.
That said, I don't really enjoy wild rabbit meat even though domestic rabbit is my favorite meat. It tends to be dark and have a fairly strong flavor. Last year I didn't do any population control since we had a lot of our rabbits in the freezer and I didn't want to be bothered cooking wild ones.
Oh, also make sure it's legal to shoot them. Out here it's only legal to shoot them Oct->Jan. Also, make sure you know what diseases your wild rabbits carry and always check the liver.
Hope that helps.
Miranda
Hi Rosemary,
I was bored and browsed some sites and found these sites which might be helpful:
http://msucares.com/livestock/small_animal/slaughter.html
This sites explaines how to dress rabits
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ferreter/recipes.htm
http://pan-am.uniserve.com/pg000005.htm
these sites have rabbit recipes
good luck!
Miranda
Rosemary
I think I'll need someone to actually show me - I learn better that way.Then if something goes wrong, help is at hand! I've been told to use Latex gloves as it can be quite smelly if the gut bursts. Deep joy!
Mandy
why don't u contact some of the members of the scottish ferret club, some of them hunt rabbits and should be able to show u how to clean and skin them.
We stay in Abington, so a little far unfortunately to come over,
The gargunock show is on saturday 3rd, and the club will be their unless we are canceled due to weather. if u have time pop over, bring a bunny and a sharp knife, lol
Rosemary
Thanks. Didn't make the show, unfortunately. I like ferrets - we got some "ferreters" to try with our rabbits but the holes are in brambles and couldn't be netted.
The ferrets were lovely though, once I got used to the smell.
James
Use ferrets with net they do all the work
Comments are now closed for this post.
Elwin Molenaar
Monday 8 May, 2006 at 1:27pm
Wow, good stuff. I like shooting. I'm not a psycho tho :o)
But I don't know if I could shoot nice wee rabbits. But if they're endangering your crops than I don't think you got much choice.
Good luck with the hunting!!