I enjoy attending musical festivals such as the Glastonbury festival, and have attended several since 1999. A have graced my presence upon Leeds festival (3x), Glastonbury festival (2x) and most recently, The Big Chill, where I achieved the status of party boy.
I recently (accidentally) ran down a rabbit, and so decided to make the best of a bad situation. I think it is illegal to remove your own road kill, but it would be a bit disgusting removing someone else's road kill wouldn't it? This is not quite an an interest, but more of an interesting thing I did.
The first thing to do after running down an animal, is to inspect your victim. You have to check that what you have killed is legal game, and is edible. Road kill that you can't eat includes badgers, cats, dogs, and children. Don't be dismayed though, there are plenty of animals you can eat. Animals falling into the edible category include deer, hares, rabbits, and pheasants. Apparently you can also eat squirrel!
You should also check that the victim hasn't been damaged to an extent that makes it unusable. A completely flattened animal, or one with a ruptured gall bladder won't taste very nice. Luckily, I had managed to just run over the top of the rabbit's head, so she* only had limited damage: one squashed eye, a bit of a crushed skull, and some black and burnt hair round the top of the head. This was lucky in two ways: firstly, the rabbit probably experienced no pain or distress, as death would have been instant; secondly, I got an almost perfect corpse.
Injuries as a result of violent collisions often include bleeding; dead things can bleed a lot! It is therefore recommended that you find something available to stop your car getting stained; I used a tool box that I keep in my car.
* Closer inspection later revealed that the rabbit was female.
From here on, most of my comments will be based on rabbits only, since I only have experience of rabbit.
Rabbit is best skinned immediately, or failing that, after being hung for 2 to 3 days. I made the terrible mistake of hanging my rabbit overnight, and leaving it till morning to tackle it. Come morning, it was well into rigor mortis, and I was unable to skin it. It is impossible to get the rabbit's skin over its legs when they will not bend. Rabbits in rigor mortis however, do make amusing props.
I gutted my rabbit before skinning it, but I think you should normally wait until after skinning to gut your rabbit. I just didn't want any of its innards smelling any more than they already did while it hung for a further 2 days.
The first of these is more difficult than the second, and both are quite smelly jobs. You need a sharp knife, and some scissors, and a cleaver is also usefull for chopping up the carcass into joints.
Take the scissors, and cut through the rabbit's fur from the bottom of the abdomen, all the way up to the rib cage. Be carefull just to cut through the skin, and not through the flesh into its guts. Then, use a cleaver or a sharp knife, and chop all the rabbit's feet off at the topmost joint. You must then undress the rabbit from its fur. Start by feeding the hind legs out of their fur. Then, try and get the fur off the tail. I had a bit of problem here, and ended up with a 'naked' rabbit with a little white bob on its tail. You can then take the fur off the body, and slip it away from the fore legs. I didn't bother getting the fur off the head, since this can be a difficult task. I just chopped its head off with a cleaver and burnt it in the garden.
Gutting is quite easy really. You take the scissors and cut through the abdomen again. This time you are cutting through the flesh, but be carefull not to puncture an intestine or anything like that. It's amazing how neat and tidy everything is in there. You basically just take everything out, without damaging it. You have to be carefull when taking the colon out. Is that what it's called? You know, the bung hole. You can make your dead rabbit poo by squeezing the last few poos out - better out than in I suppose.
The skin must be stretched over something while it dries. I stretched mine out over a wooden box, using string thread through the leg holes, which worked quite well. After it dries, it stinks really badly of er... rabbit. This is where I am now, don't really know what to do next. Maybe I'll make some underwear out of it or something.
I like watching and playing football. Unfortunately my chat stinks like Ally Young's bedroom, but I'm a great player.
I support Sheffield Wednesday, who are currently in the Championship. I am looking forward to seeing them compete in the Champions League in a couple of seasons time. I've only seen them once this season, but that was painfull enough. If I ever get a job, I think I might waste £400 and get myself a season ticket.
Sheffield Wednesday are a prestigeous club, with a great heritage. They boast an impressive history of formidable England players including: Chris Waddle, David Hirst, Chris Woods, Des Walker, and the great Scott Carson (well he's got no caps yet, but he will have) who we had on loan for a little bit.
Whilst at university, I played three seasons of football in the Bristol intramural leagues. The second two of these seasons were with the famous Havana Beasts (formerly Havana Coffee) for whom I played as striker, and was an integral squad member. To date, I have notched up a career total of 0 goals and 1 assist (you know the one Rich), a record that can only be described as prolific! I hope to better my already outstanding reputation, and am currently open to offers from teams, looking to benefit from such skills.
I am currently participating in the Premier League official online fantasy league, and am surprisingly doing quite meadiocre. You can check out how I am doing on my team profile.