Wow, i must be the only falconer who reads your blogs. Rabbit meat is one of the healthiest and leanest meats you can eat. Falconers who fly hawks such as red-tails and harris hawks are very fond of this wonderful meat.

I’ll include some information below that would be helpful for anyone who’d like to try rabbit meat

First is to make a suggestion to your readers to NOT soak the meat in water (salt or otherwise) as you lose much of the nutrition this way. Falconers who want to bring the weight of their hawk down (and still reward them) will soak meat in water overnight and in some cases the nutritional value (calories) of the food can be reduced by 90%. That might sound incredible but I’ve seen it myself. If i cut up meat of any kind and soak it well in smaller pieces for 24 hours and feed it to my red-tailed hawk, it is nearly the same as not feeding her.

The other thing I was going to mention is how easy it is to gut and clean a rabbit once you know what you are doing. After you have done it 5-10 times, you should be able to take a freshly killed rabbit and remove the guts and have it cleaned and in your fridge in under 15 minutes. First, gutting the rabbit should only take you 10 seconds or so – if you “squeeze gut” it – this is incredibly simple. Google squeeze gutting a rabbit if you want to know more. Now you have a gutted rabbit ready to clean. If you cut the head off first, then skinning it is quite fast – the skin pulls off very easily. The only parts of the rabbit worth the effort for human consumption is the backstraps and thighs. Cut these off first, briefly run them under cold water and remove and ‘stray’ hairs. You’re done. If you have a carnivorous pet, I’d suggest cutting the rest of the rabbit up into 3 or 4 sections for them. This way you do not waste any part of the rabbit.

For those that do not prefer the “gamey” taste of a wild rabbit, take your rabbit meat and marinade it for a few days (I prefer 7 days and cut the meat into cubes to soak – feel free to email me for some recipes) – done this way, it is very hard to taste any gameyness and most people wouldn’t know it from chicken.

One last suggestion – if you’d prefer to not find shotgun pellets in your rabbit meat, try hunting with a raptor instead

LOL!! I have to share my story because it’s a lot like yours. My husband got a rabbit – with a sling shot, of all things too! – a few years back. I’d always told him that if he got one, I’d field dress it. We have a book on how to field-dress small game, but I had never done it before. Anyway, I had hubby hold the book out in front of me while I was tackling this rabbit (lots of “turn the page”, “no, wait, turn it back to the previous page for a second…” etc.) Incidentally, we’re both city kids too…although we now process our own chickens.

Hubby made rabbit cacciatore from the beast and it was darn tasty (except for the fact that I didn’t take out the scent gland under the armpits…the book never mentioned that!! but my FIL said, after the fact, that you should if you don’t like musky rabbit. Live and learn).

These days, we have a farm dog who hunts and eats the rabbits so we don’t get a chance to get one before she does.

Loved your story…thanks for bringing back memories for me!

Wow! You’ll have to let us know how you cooked it and how it tasted! I have an over-abundance of rabbits cavorting in my yard, and if I don’t get them under control, they will no doubt eat my veggies once I plant them!

Oh, Rabbit is absolutely delicious! I grew up eating it. However, we raised the rabbits ourselves.

I raise rabbits, and they’re delicious! Soaking in salt water overnight is definitely the thing to do. I boil my rabbits, pick the meat off the bones (then feed the bones to the dogs) and cook it up in a casserole so it goes further. My children LOVE it! Be brave – it’s great Tastes a bit like chicken, but richer. And it’s VERY lean!

That is too funny! I’m with you. There is a reason I don’t live in the country. Please let us know how your husband liked eating the rabbit.