Skinning wild game

Coldwood said:
To further this question of wild game: In the past two weeks I have seen a lot of racoon and porcupines on the side of the road. I'm not advocating eating roadkill, although there is a roadkill cookbook, but has anybody had any experience cleaning or eating racoon or porcupine? Or possum, or muskrat, or snapping turtle? You can post anonymously ;)
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Most of those roadkill cook books are supposed to be funny...not for real...

Lots of places it is illegal to eat road kill... Don't get caught in Texas trying to salvage a deer... big fines....

Lot of folk down this way roast coons just in knowing how to get the bad parts out.. No one eats possum. PorkyP's aren't worth foolin with ... I have some Javelina hog in the freezer... Forgot to mention wild turkey....awesome...
 
Coldwood said:
To further this question of wild game: In the past two weeks I have seen a lot of racoon and porcupines on the side of the road. I'm not advocating eating roadkill, although there is a roadkill cookbook, but has anybody had any experience cleaning or eating racoon or porcupine? Or possum, or muskrat, or snapping turtle? You can post anonymously ;)
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Never ate, or saw for that matter, a porcupine but I regularly eat coon. I have 2 favorite recipes one is BBQed just like pork, slow cooked on hickory at about 250 degrees basted with your favorite sauce and turned once an hour, till it starts falling apart.

The way I eat them most of the time is pressure cooked then seasoned and baked in the oven with sweet potatoes. It is very good meat, a little greasy and reminds me of pork, when cleaning remember to remove the glands in the arm pits.

I have eaten turtle quite a bit, mostly in a stew we call a mull down south, never ate muskrat or possum, I have seen one or two possums crawl out of a dead cows arse so I think I would have to be damn hungry to eat one. Chris
 
runningboar said:
I have killed 2 of those skunk pigs and will never kill another, right next to bear as the worst meat I have ever tried to eat. Chris
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LOL,,,,,again the trick to those is to get that musk gland off fairly quickly...

I actully take a little extra time with those and usually just take the hind quarters, and I don't gut them...yeah...you can carefully take the hind quarters off, the front shoulders off, and some of the backstrap....dont try this if you haven't field dressed a lot of deer and know your way around. Its just going slow and trimming off the meat, and not punchuring the guts.

Put the head on an ant bed for a week or so and you have a neat skull....I have a pic of one with some knives around it in the Buck Forum... search my name if you want.. May not be a full shot of the skull...
 
I have hunted all my life and was raized on the farm, I butchered my share of domestic and wild critters. I have never in my lifetime met any one that has contacted any desiese or gotten sick from wild game and I have ate my share of squirrles. When Field dressing your wild game DO NOT wash it with water unless you can keep it very close to freezing, the meat will not form a proper pelical which helps preserve it. Be carefull not to get intestinal products or urin on the meat, hang it with the head down or removed. Wipe it down with viniger and salt. Hang in a well breathing bag at night and wrap it in old sleeping bags during the day, keep it in the shade, You would be suprized how long meat will keep in camp done this way. I will never forget when I was a youngster, I decided to make some homemade jerky, I spent all day slicing meat, washed it nice and clean, loaded it up with lots of spices, salt & pepper and hung it on the wire racks in the garage to dry. two days later it was all spoiled. What went wrong ?? WASHED IT WITH WATER !!!!!! Good Luck Leon
 
I had a bunch of meat from a javelina and decided to make jerky out of it :D it tasted ok seasoned up but you better have lots of time set aside to chew it enough to swallow, had to be the toughest stuff I have ever ate. :D
 
leon.pugh said:
I have hunted all my life and was raized on the farm, I butchered my share of domestic and wild critters. I have never in my lifetime met any one that has contacted any desiese or gotten sick from wild game and I have ate my share of squirrles. When Field dressing your wild game DO NOT wash it with water unless you can keep it very close to freezing, the meat will not form a proper pelical which helps preserve it. Be carefull not to get intestinal products or urin on the meat, hang it with the head down or removed. Wipe it down with viniger and salt. Hang in a well breathing bag at night and wrap it in old sleeping bags during the day, keep it in the shade, You would be suprized how long meat will keep in camp done this way. I will never forget when I was a youngster, I decided to make some homemade jerky, I spent all day slicing meat, washed it nice and clean, loaded it up with lots of spices, salt & pepper and hung it on the wire racks in the garage to dry. two days later it was all spoiled. What went wrong ?? WASHED IT WITH WATER !!!!!! Good Luck Leon
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Venison jerky is great...but use the better cuts of meat...to heck with the belly meat... Use that for sausage or hamburger... Get a $35 dehydrator for jerky..
 
Okay, now you guys are starting to gross me out. But we killed the animal to turn it into food, with honor, so we want to do the process in the best way possible. Please continue.
 
Now we have the deer skinned. As mentioned earlier by another, this is not what I would do for a mount, but to make meat. Skinning for a mount is trickier, and I'll no go into that. You can drop the head and hide in the offal bucket after sawing off a wedge of skull if you are keeping the antlers.

I start with my two favorite cuts, the long strips of back muscle on either side of the spine. I call these the tenderloins, though I have been told by others that refers to the two strips of meat inside the cavits near the kidneys, what I call the sweetmeats. I cut these tenderloins loose where they enter the hams, and can generally work them loose from the spine and ribs most of the way down the neck. I cut them off there. They will be generally tubular, rich red meat, with a sheath of tough tendon on the outside that can be filleted off like with a fish. In fact, I use a fillet knife (147OT) on a cutting board for this. They are then usually cut into butterfly steaks and rinsed, bagged.

Next, I remove the kidneys inside on each side of the backbone. A few people want these to make kidney pies or some such, but I toss them. Then I use the Sharpfinger to remove the two muscles I refered to earlier, the sweetmeats, or "inside tenderloins". This is by far the tenderest meat on the deer, no fat marbling, no tendons. These get a ziplock of their own.

Next, I remove the two front shoulders. They do not have any strong skelatal attachment, so I slice them loose under the shoulder blade, cutting the muscle at the rear (attached to the rib cage), and the top near the neck. The shoulders are set aside now, and I remove the neck meat. I am appalled to see how many people discard the neck. There is a large amount of meat there! Several roasts if you want, but I add mine to the bucket of meat for the grinder, to be mixed with a small amount of beef fat at the butcher shop. Mmmm! Deerburgers! Deer pizza! Deer spaghetti! Deer chili!!

Okay, so now we have a carcass essentially stripped to the hams. I like the heart for stew, or file' gumbo, so I go ahead and cut around the diaphram inside the chest, freeing the lungs. I pull these out, with the windpipe (trachia) that wasn't cut off while debonng the neck meat. Into the bucket, though some people save the "lights" as they are called. Next down there is the heart and liver. Pull them out, a snip here and there if they resist. On the side of the liver is a little bag of juice, the gall bladder. Remve and toss it. Rinse and bag the heart (soak it in salt water after flushing and cleaning it before slicing and cubeing it), cut the liver into two pieces (it is huge) and clean and soak it likewise in a mild brine. Unless you want to saw off and eat the ribs (BBQ or whatever) all that is left to remove is the two hams.

Intermission again. I swear it takes longer to explain than to do!

Codger
 
I begin cutting the hams off by following the pelvic bone with my knife point, really scrapint the meat loose more than slicing. I work all the way around front and rear. All meat remaining on each side of the spine belongs with the hams. Finally, the hams are only held to the spine by the sockets and small tendons around them. At this point if I don't have a helper, I lower the carcass to a tarp and finish removint them, them pack them in a cooler with the two shoulders. If there is room, I add the other meat to be ground. I let the processor cut the hams into steaks, grind the rest. Processors never get to see the tenderloins or sweetmeats. Yes, I could do it all at home, but I don't any more. I do make the processor remove all bones from the steaks. Deer bone marrow and fat goes rancid quickly, and will give the meat a bad flavor. All through the process, I've been trimming off all the fat I come across. Some deer have layers of fat unser the skin all over. I keep none of it. When I am done, all that is left is the rib cage with spine and pelvis attached, and the bucket of offal. I carry these down to the far side of the creek in the pasture and dump them for the foxes, coons, possums, and yotes. They will be gone after the first night.

I hope this helped, in spite of my horrible spelling throughout. Yes, I've done the truck jerk to remove hides, and seen many other tricks including using a boat wench. Everyone has their favorite way to skin and butcher a deer, and I am only describing one way. If you intend to use a processor, check with them first. Some states only allow them to hang and butcher deer that come to them field dressed but whole in the skin. My processor takes them whole, but skinned and bagged. That was last year. I haven't checked yet this year.

Codger

PS- Roadkill deer, if fresh, is good tenderloins. We get to keep them here if we notify our wildlife officers. No, we ain't talking freeway 18 wheeler road mash! We talkin...WHAP!! "Dang! Did you see that?" Yeah, you gotchur knife?" "Hayul yeah!"
 
I would cook my own, no problem. We get deer in my front yard and in my backyard. We get wild turkey in my front yard and in my backyard. My wife feeds them, loves them, won't let me shoot any. Someday she may get hungry enough (hope not). But I will do some wild game hunting out of the front yard, up on the hill, and cook it for myself.
 
Codger, that is great information! Thank you! Probably more information about butchering meat than any of us will ever do, but I do appreciate you writing it up for us.
 
Then go for small game, and make a picnic out of it. It adds to the experience. For reference, you could easily eat two squirrels or one rabbit. Both are very lean, so taking a few strips of bacon along will help keep them from drying out while roasting on a campfire. Make a quick spit with two forked sticks and a cross skewer, or just hold the skewer in your hand and turn it occasionally. You don't need flame as much as you need heat from coals. Like you do with a charcoal grill. wrap the bacon around them, and pin it with field expedient toothpicks. Bon appitite!

Codger
 
Great descriptions Codger!!! :thumbup: :thumbup: I even picked up some ideas, but this 61 year old head is a little hard...lol....

The truck skinning isn't really a jerk tho... just kind of let the truck idel away with the skin. Sure saves a lot of time for us and seems like there is a lot less hair on the meat afterwards...

What you call tenderloin, we call backstrap, on a beef,,,ribeye.

What you call sweetmeats. is what we call loin, tenderloin on a beef.,,and by far the choice piece of meat on a deer. Wife is very careful to keep it separate.

We never take our meat to a processing plant. You just never know what you will get back. They throw everyones trimmings in together after they weigh yours, and give you back equal weight when they grind it for sausage. Bad thing is you never know how someone elses meat was cared for...

We proces our own, I get it deboned and an electric knife makes pretty quick work of making steaks. Then we use the seal o meal things and vacuum seal it. Even grind our own for hamburger and son in law smokes some links.

Never have a bad piece of venison! Good Stuff! Had Venison sausage last night.. Cool thread guys....:thumbup: :thumbup:
 
To further that last post, Codger, I'm impressed that you do all that work yourself. I think most people would just take the carcass to the deer cutter and leave it to him. I've got a friend who goes hunting in southern New York every year, the deer are so thick you can beat them to death on the side of the road. He takes his right to the cutter. He gives me a couple of fat tubes of sausage. He's a good friend and I respect him, but I don't think this is really hunting, it's meat harvesting. And that's okay.
 
When I butcher for others, I call it backstrap too.

"You want half the deer for cutting it up"
"Naw, but I will take a backstrap and a piece of sweetmeat"

Makes it sound like a better deal to the guy. "Backstrap" sounds tough, but we know that's not true!

My processor is actually a grocery store, and the butcher is the owner's son, and a friend. He keeps it seperate with my check tag, so it never gets mixed with someone else's mess.

Codger
 
Coldwood said:
I would cook my own, no problem. We get deer in my front yard and in my backyard. We get wild turkey in my front yard and in my backyard. My wife feeds them, loves them, won't let me shoot any. Someday she may get hungry enough (hope not). But I will do some wild game hunting out of the front yard, up on the hill, and cook it for myself.
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WooHoo,,wild turkey....great eating.... We manage to take a few every year. On those I FIRST, before gutting... hang them by their legs and completely peel the skin off... No plucking nightmare...lol....

Then gut it as you would a chicken ,,careful peeling out the craw on the front.

Can treat it as any turkey or chicken. But last few years, I will let it chill down real good, and then literally fillet all the meat off the bones...both white and dark.. Dark meat do the giblet gravy thing if you saved those internal parts. Then can work up the breast as larger pieces that you can fry in a skillet like small chops, or just how ever Grandma wants to cook it. Really good also... We vacuum seal all our meat...
 
Coldwood said:
...but I don't think this is really hunting, it's meat harvesting. And that's okay.
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Actually, he is doing something more important than hunting. Game management. In many areas, overpopulation is a big problem causing decrease in herd health, property damage, and habitat depletion. For many years, hunters, and DNRs worked to restore herds decimated by market hunting. Sometimes they were too successful, and what started out as a needed thing...protecting the does, became a mantra..an ethic...a..a code of honor, and a stigma became attached to any killing of does. Now, in many places where it is needed in the worst way, hunters just won't do it. Here, in Tennessee, if I hunted every deer season statewide, every zone and bonus hunt, and killed my limit, I would kill two bucks and over three hundred does (actually antlerless deer).

Codger
 
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