People who plant in a rabbit farm should initially be prepared for the fact that they must be killed and dressed upon reaching a certain age. Some resort to the help of experienced professionals, because they think that this is a complicated procedure. In fact, if taken for granted, slaughtering a rabbit at home can be done by everyone.
When to cut? (signs)
Rabbits grow and gain weight very quickly. If you grow them for the sake of meat, then you can kill them at any time after reaching 3-4 months of age. Some meat, so-called broiler breeds are ready for slaughter in two months. In any case, you need to pay attention to the weight of the animal. As a rule, good meat in those individuals that weigh no more than four kilograms. The younger the meat, so it is considered more dietary. But even at a very young age, it’s not worth killing rabbits, as you can only get bones for soup as a result. 
Get acquainted with such breeds of rabbits as: marder, Angora, Soviet chinchilla, flandr, Californian, gray giant, white giant, Rex, Butterfly, Baran, Risen and black-brown.
If, in addition to meat, you are going to use animal skins, then you need to slaughter rabbits after molting. The first molt takes place in three to four months, and the second in six to eight. It is advised to slaughter the animal after the second molt, but for individuals born at the beginning of winter, it can be limited to one.
To understand that the molt is over, you can simply hold your hand over the skin. If there are no hairs on it, then the rabbit shed. In individuals of multi-colored color, the end of the molt can be checked by spreading the fur. If the skin is white, then the molt is completed, if it has dark spots, you need to wait.
For a white breed, the condition of the skin is not an indication of the end of a wool change. In order to ensure its change, you need to try to pull out a few hairs in different parts of the animal's body. If this happens, then the process of molting is not over. The best time for slaughter is the period from mid-autumn to early spring.
Did you know? Rabbits can reach speeds of over fifty kilometers per hour, and the longest long jump is three meters.
Rabbit slaughter
Before you hammer a rabbit at home, you need to carry out some preparatory procedures. First of all, plant the animal in a separate cage, give water, but stop feeding twelve hours before slaughter. It is believed that during this time the intestines of the animal is completely cleaned.
The skin should be cleaned of debris, dirt and excess fluff. To do this, you can simply comb the animal with a special comb. The slaughter rabbit must be healthy. You can believe it yourself or call for a vet examination.
Important! If the rabbit was vaccinated, then it can be killed no earlier than one month after it.
What is needed
Before you kill a rabbit, you need to decide on the tools that will be required for this. If you do this in the most common and proven way, you need a weapon for striking. This may be a stick or a hammer, the tip of which must be wrapped with cloth or rubber. This is done in order not to crush the skull of the animal, but only to deliver a stunning blow. 
Make a stick on which the animal is hung after slaughter. It should be about thirty centimeters in length with hooks or other fixtures on the ends that will hold the carcass.
If you are going to later use the rabbit skin, then you need to prepare a spacer on which it will dry. This device, made of several sticks, in the shape of a triangle. From its lower corners should move the legs. The size of the strut should be such that the skin on it can be put on the stretch. You will need knives, it is better to take a few bowls for meat, offal and washing hands.
Description of the popular method
There are two types of ways to kill an animal - bloodless and bloody. The first is more humane and almost all breeders use it. Its essence is to strike the animal in the occipital region. It is necessary to take the crawl by the hind legs and wait until it finishes twitching. After that, take a stick and strike it, as accurately as possible, in the back of the head over the ears. The blow should be carried out with moderate force. The animal finally dies in half a minute.
Next you need to drain blood from the carcass. This is done in several ways. You can fasten the paws of the animal on the hooks of a previously prepared strut. Then make an incision on the neck for blood to flow out. You can fix the carcass on the strut behind the head, make a cut of the paws in the area of the hock joints and the blood will flow through the paws. It will come out all if you remove the eyeball.
This method is considered more humane, first the nervous system of the rabbit is turned off, and then bleeding occurs.
other methods
Using the mechanical method of slaughter, you can strike not in the parietal region, but on the forehead or on the nose of the rabbit. For this, the rabbit is also held by the hind limbs, waited for it to calm down, and hit with moderate force.
There is a so-called blood slaughter. It is used by Muslims and Jews. With this method, when the heart is still beating, the blood flows out quickly and the meat is completely cleansed from it. Before slaughtering a rabbit, it is held or suspended by the hind limbs. When he calms down, they cut the largest artery in his throat. The blood quickly drains, and then proceed to cutting the carcass.
There is also a French method used in most European countries. Krol take for hind limbs and head. After he stops moving, his paws are sharply moved apart. In an animal, the cervical vertebrae break or the spinal cord breaks. You can do this on the table in a horizontal position. 
In large farms use the electric method of slaughter. A current of five amperes is discharged into the rabbit's temporal region. The animal dies after thirty seconds.
You can kill the animal with a pin, which is fired from a special device. It enters the area where the straight lines of the left eye and the right ear and the right eye and the left ear intersect. The death of an animal is instantaneous.
When applying the air embolism method, air is injected into the heart region with a syringe in the ear vein. When he gets to the organ, the valves and muscles become paralyzed and he stops working. By the time this process takes less than a minute.
Did you know? Rabbit can simultaneously bear two pregnancies from different males. This is because her uterus is bifurcated.
Removal and processing of skins
After the blood is glass, you need to quickly start skinning the animal and cutting it. This process cannot be delayed, since the body will cool down and it will be much more difficult to do this. In the summertime, tightening threatens to infect meat with fly larvae.
The very process of removal begins with circular incisions at the end of the hind legs before the hock joints. Next, the skin on both hind limbs is carefully incised toward the inguinal region. In the region of the genital organs and the urethra, the skin is trimmed in a circle, they must remain with the fur. Further, it is as a bag tightened from the carcass to the front paws. If it is difficult to pass, then you can help yourself with a knife, while trying not to damage the skin. When the front paws are cleaned, the skin rests on their end and on the head. These parts are cut off and then separated from the skin. 
The carcass remains without a head and the ends of the front paws.
The skin itself is cleared of fat and stretched onto a spacer for drying. It should be dried in a well-ventilated warm place.
Important! The skin should be dried with fur inside. If you do the opposite, it can rot.
Gutting and cutting
Before you cut the rabbit into portions, you need to prepare the carcass and remove the insides from it. It is necessary to take the hind legs in the thigh area and with a sharp movement to break them from the abdomen to the back. After that, carefully separate the bladder and genitals. When this is done, an incision is made from the groin area along the abdomen to the beginning of the ribs. The main thing is not to hurt the intestines. After the incision, it is removed from the abdominal cavity along with the liver and gallbladder. The intestines, gallbladder and bile ducts are separated from the liver. Next, the lungs, heart and liver are removed from the carcass. The hind legs are cut off at the end, in the region of the hock joints and with this the gutting process is completed. The carcass is ready directly for cutting.
Before cutting the rabbit it is necessary to hold it over the fire in order to remove the remaining hairs from the surface. Next, separate the front and hind legs in the places of their attachment to the body. This is done very easily. The front legs, as a rule, do not divide, because they are very small.
We advise you to familiarize yourself with the basic rules and techniques of slaughter chickens, as well as pigs.
Hind legs along the joint can be divided. Remains ridge with ribs. This part turns the spine up and with the help of a hatchet it makes as many potholes as you want to divide it into pieces. Next you need to take hands on different sides of the pothole and break the bones. This is done without effort, as their fortress is broken by a hammer. With the help of a knife, the separation of each piece of the ridge is completed. If there is a lot of meat, you can proportionally divide it for easy storage. It is possible, for example, to bake the whole carcass. For this, you will not need the skills of dressing.
To consolidate knowledge, you can watch a video of the whole process of slaughtering a rabbit at home.
If you have started or decide to start rabbits, then, in addition to skills for care and feeding, you need to understand how to kill an animal. This is not so difficult to do. You need to choose a painless way and know the further features of the process. Rabbit meat is considered dietary, so the cultivation of these animals will be popular at all times.
