A Vegetarian's Experience with Butchering Animals

The first time I saw an animal slaughtered, I was 14 years old. My Great Uncle Henry lived next door and kept about 200 rabbits. He sold them, and used them, for pets and food. That is until a tragic case of mistaken identity caused him and his wife to make a stew out of Bobo, the one they set aside as a pet, and even taught a couple tricks. They were so upset that I thought they might quit butchering bunnies all together. They ended up quitting making pets out of them instead.

Uncle Henry used to clean the fish I caught. I hated doing that, even though I enjoyed fishing and my Gramps liked eating the fish I caught. After I watched him a few times it stopped grossing me out too much, and I was able to do it myself…Still didn’t like it though. He asked me if I wanted to learn how to dress a rabbit. From context, after reading his sign: “Rabbits For Sale Live or Dressed” I knew “dressed” meant the opposite if “live.” I’ve always been up for learning new things, especially farming stuff, and this was a farming skill…So I showed up at his picnic table early one Saturday morning to see what this was all about. I was wondering how he was going to kill it, and if I would be able to watch, and if I would feel bad for the animal. I was nervous.

After he selected a big albino with smallish ears, we walked up the hill back to the picnic table. Even though my uncle picked up his rabbits by the scruff of the neck, he didn’t carry it that way. He held it in his right arm, and scratched the bunny’s head and petted him during his last few moments of bunny consciousness. Uncle Henry switched the rabbit to his other arm, and reached for a 1” by 2” flat club about the length of a night stick. After setting the rabbit on the table to take a different hold on it, he quickly picked up the rabbit by the scruff of its back and in less than a second, thwap, right on the top of it’s furry little head: Lights out. As I stood mildly horrified, bracing my self for the gore yet to come, the limp rabbit bled from his nose and ears. My uncle made a cut from between its back legs up to the bottom of the rib cage, and then with a quick bare hand, scooped out the guts.

What would have happened if I didn’t prepare my self so well for this blood and guts lesson in “Where Do Bunny McNuggets Come From?” I’m proud to say; I didn’t pass out when, still a bit quezzy with that thwack sound echoing in my ears, I watched steam rise up from the warm innards into the cold, New England autumn air. I barffed -after I had gotten several steps away from the food preparation area. Then I barffed a little bit more, composed myself, washed my hands again, sucked it up and went back to the table to see this lesson through to the end. Thoughtfully, I guess, my Uncle held off the skinning until I returned. Surprisingly, that wasn’t so bad. I expected that skinning an animal required knife work like skinning a fish filet. Instead, after he cut off the feet –what ever happened to those brightly colored dyed lucky rabbits feet on the dog tag chains?-He cut down the inside of each back leg from the bottom of the cut in the stomach, making a “Y.” Then he pulled the skin back toward the head and it came off the rabbit like a sweater. At that point he cut off the head; it made for a much less repulsive sight with the skin covering its face and eyes.

Then he “quartered” it; that is he cut the carcass in half, leaving an upper and lower section. After he cut each of those halves in half again, and washed them really well we were done. He stewed it with wine and carrots and potatoes in thick gravy and we ate it for supper. The meat itself tasted like turkey dark meat. I didn’t have a lot of trouble eating it, but felt about the same way as I do now when on rare occasions I eat meat after 16 years of being a vegetarian. I have a rule that if someone serves me meat, without knowing that I’m a vegetarian, I’ll eat it so I don’t insult or offend them. That has only happened 2 or 3 times though. And then, not to sound like Jessica Simpson, but I once ate a chicken salad sandwich, thinking it was tuna.

When I was in my thirties, I did some commercial fishing. It only takes about two days out in the wilderness of the high seas, working 44 hours in two days with about 4 hours of sleep- before the survival instincts kick in. By the time we started pulling in 100 pound sword fish and tuna I was having no problem sawing off the heads and scooping out the guts, on my hands and knees, sloshing around in three inches of blood and guts and seawater-for the next seven days. This really strengthened my stomach, and made it so a year later I was able to field dress and butcher my first deer. I can’t say I killed it, someone else did- in fact, it was the car in front of me that hit it. I took its last breath right as I walked up to it: Oh well, it was road kill, but it was fresh! I have just enough Swamp Yankee in me to not be too proud to pack it in my freezer. I grilled the heart and liver, and cubed it up for all my dog friends, and my human friends ate the rest of the more choice cuts. I’m still a vegetarian, and phew, a very rare and kind of weird one!

But think about it, how many people do you know, yourself included, who could never kill and butcher an animal, yet they eat at least one serving of meat every day? What, they have henchmen for that? I once had a woman chew me out for dressing a deer in a closed up garage, telling me how just the thought of what was going on in there horrified her –while I could smell the bacon she was frying for her breakfast. That’s probably weirder even though it’s more common.