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 the Merck Forest & Farmland team on Sunday, September 13th, from 10:00 am - 1:00 pm for a rabbit butchery workshop. This workshop will be guided and led by Merck’s Farm Manager, Hadley Stock. Hadley raises Silver Fox and Rex meat rabbits on her family farm, Pink Boot Farm.

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 break down a carcass into prime cuts, packaging meat, and proper meat handling skills

• guidance on tanning hides

Real-time hands-on Q&A throughout the entire class. Rural Vermont will also present updates on federal and state on-farm slaughter regulations, as well as updates from the 2026 legislative session. There will be plenty of room for questions and discussion throughout the event.

Registration: $50/participant

Special Notes:

*Please dress accordingly for the weather, wear waterproof footwear, and please leave your dogs at home.

*Please arrive well-fed and bring snacks and water bottles if wanted/needed. Rural Vermont will provide light snacks.

*There are cabins and campsites available at Merck if you would like to arrive the evening before. More information can be found at: https://www.merckforest.org/stay

Ticket Price: $50

A Note About Workshop Pricing & Registration:

Rural Vermont works alongside farm hosts, instructors, and other non-profits to bring a variety of workshops and peer-to-peer learning opportunities to our members and communities throughout Vermont.  Our ticket prices are built on the needs of the community, the needs of the farm hosts and instructors, and the structure of the workshop itself. We work hard to provide accessible, quality programming and to also pay fair compensation to our farm hosts, our instructors, and to cover the cost of managing and producing our workshops. As such, our ticket pricing varies from workshop to workshop and we strive to keep our pricing within a fair range. Thank you for participating and learning alongside us!