h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: preparing a rabbit for the table - A738957
Author: ian the sweeper of skies - U192824

I don't know what goes in here

It seems to me that if it is a survival skill you need to know how to gut it too.

I have not gutted rabbits for a couple of decades, but I did do it relatively often in my teens. I think I skinned them before gutting them, but I doubt that it matters what order you do it in. On the other hand, butchers presumably know what they are doing.

You need to lay the rabbit belly side up on the table, and get a very sharp knife.

Insert the tip of the knife into the belly, with the sharp side of the blade upwards, and the blunt side towards the rabbit. Don't stab it, you only want to open the skin at first. When you have got the tip of the knife between the belly and the skin move it up towards the neck of the rabbit, past the ribs and up to the throat.

Then do the same thing again, going through the muscle, instead of the skin.

Don't dig the knife in, you should only use the last centimeter of so of the knife.

If you have a pair of fine bladed scissors, snip off all tubes as near to the head as you can manage, and at the other end, as near to the tail. You will find pellets in the rectal tract. Try not to let these get out, but you will be washing the meat anyway. If you don't have scissors, use the sharp point of the knife again.

Turn the rabbit over and the guts should fall out more or less in a single piece. You may need to ease them out if the membranes stick near the spine. There is a knack to this, and when you have done it a few times, you can flick them out into a bucket or bin.

Do not pierce the gall bladder, the gall will taint the meat. If the gall bladder has been ruptured by a shotgun pellet then the meat will be too tainted to eat.

Wash the cavity and skin the rabbit and there you are.

Good luck with the entry!

Ben

cheers Ben,its blindingly obvious now you've pointed it out.I started writing the article,purely as, how to prepare a rabbit for the table and was concerned that a shot rabbit was aquired with the guts in,for the reasons you give.On later going through the technique I felt I had better justify my reason for eating rabbit,hence the mention of survival skills.I'm sure there will be more wrong with it as it is my first attempt.
Thanks for the adviceianmac.

No probs. Feel free to incorporate what I have said - this is a collaborative site after all. And that was one of the reasons I wrote it out in so much detail.

We used to snipe at rabbits with a silenced .22 rifle when I was a teenager. Shocking now. Rabbits shot with a shotgun are full of pelets, and there is much more damage. One of the things that fascinated me about them is that the shoulder blades are not actually connected to the rib cage or spine. They rest on top of muscle. Presumably this means they can hop the way that they do.

It is a good entry with clear instructions.

And don't feel bad about eating rabbit. Country boys and girls have to make a living somehow.

All the best, and here's hoping it gets picked soon.

Ben

Hi Ian,

nice entry! I see you've read the how-to-write pages thouroughly... Should go right in the Guide, hope it gets picked soon. Don't worry if the topic is not for vegetarians, there's a lot of country folks out there, as agcB said.

It would enhance the entry if you could incorporate agcB's part on gutting a rabbit, but that's completely up to you, of course. I saw a few typos (although nothing serious), perhaps you could run the text through a spellchecker to fix them.

Good work!
SchrEck Inc.

Ian, ace entry, sir! We want this to go into the Guide soon but can you incorporate agcBen's comments so we can proceed. Cheers.

nice entry, you have made much of yourself ian!