Are you interested in raising a highly sustainable (and very tasty!) protein on your farm, homestead, or backyard? Meat rabbits require less land, less water, and less energy to grow than most other livestock. 

They convert food and water into edible meat 1.4 times more efficiently than pigs and 4 times more efficiently than sheep and cattle....making them both highly efficient and sustainable and did we mention...delicious?

Please join Rural Vermont and Eliza Boudreau at SunStone Orchard and Rabbitry on Saturday, May 13th from 10:00am - Noon for a rabbit butchery workshop. 

This workshop will be guided and led by Eliza Boudreau, owner of SunStone Orchard and Rabbitry, a small family farmstead in Waterville raising rabbits, dairy goats, registered Jerseys, Mangalitsa ipp pigs, and a laying flock of ducks. 

This workshop will cover: 

• basic rabbitry setup

• how to assess an animal for optimal harvest

• tools required to butcher at home

• humane dispatch via cervical dislocation, carcass evaluation

• how to breakdown a carcass into prime cuts, packaging meat, proper meat handling skills

• cooking techniques

Real time hands on Q&A throughout the entire class. Rural Vermont will also present the updates to federal and state on-farm slaughter regulation, particularly around the proposed clarifying language being advocated for by Rural Vermont and its partners. There will be plenty of room for questions and discussion throughout the event.

A farm lunch provided by Eliza will follow the workshop. Please bring a water bottle. 

There will be an option to buy packaged rabbit meat at the end of the class and to be put on Eliza's breeding stock waitlist, if you decide to pursue raising meat rabbits. 

Registration: Registration and advanced ticket purchase is required and a minimum attendance of 10 people per workshop is needed for this event to take place. Please bring our own drink or snacks. A farm lunch will be provided.

Thank You to our event sponsor Guy’s Farm & Yard!