A pair of bills in Connecticut could make it easier for small farmers there to raise and slaughter rabbits and sell their meat. One, a standalone bill, would allow farmers to slaughter, process, and sell meat from up to 1,000 rabbits they raise each year. The other bill contains similar language, along with other agricultural provisions unrelated to rabbits. Both bills also allow the state to inspect the on-farm slaughter facilities.
The need for a mechanism that would allow small farmers to slaughter rabbits they raise on their farms, as a Hartford Courant article detailed this week, is evident. "The system set up to [slaughter rabbits] is inefficient compared to all other species," Connecticut farmer Daniela Larese, who raises pastured pigs, chicken, goats, and other animals on around 40 acres and who supports the bills, told the Courant this week. "We want legal clarification." Larese tells the paper she used to raise rabbits but the obstacles and costs pertaining to slaughter made doing so economically unfeasible.
