Oh deer

[ESpy]

I've just been given a heads-up on some venison. Sometime in the near future, my wee brother should be bringing me some over - in the form of one gralloched carcass.

I haven't dealt with anything this large before - any tips?

 

[george]

Hi Peter

I get a deer carcass once a year or so and every time it comes to butchering it I make the same mistakes! Still maybe practise will make perfect.

The best bit of advice I would give is to find somewhere large and cool and spacious to do it - don't try it on the kitchen table, theres always a lot more mess than you might think! A garage would be good if you can and if that gives you space to hang the carcass while you saw it down the middle then all the better. A big table with a washable surface is a must as well.

Have plenty of big freezer bags ready (assuming your going to freeze the meat) and a couple of buckets of hot water so you can keep things as clean as possible. You dont need all sorts of knives and cleavers and things. I tend to do it all with a six inch boning knife and a saw.

I always try to bone the meat there and then, before I freeze it and package it in 1 meal portions - no point in defrosting several meals worth at one time.

There are all sorts of american sites on the web with diagrams on how to butcher deer, although they tend to talk about white tail deer the anatomy is basically the same for most species.

I'm sure there are loads of other people in the Forum who have more experience than me - maybe someone will come up with a more detailed answer. But I hope this is some use.

Let us know how you get on - This year I'm going to experiment with smoking some of the meat in a smoker I'm building from an old fridge and a scrap gas bottle! If it works I'll post the details here.

Best of luck

George

 

[ESpy]

Thanks for that - I went searching, and found some docs on butchering whitetails.

I had been thinking in terms of rigging a scaffold of some sort outside for most of the butchering; a lot of the meat is destined for use as jerky - which is probably going to be how I pay for the carcass! The rest I'll freeze (hmm, must get the 20kgs of grapes I picked this weekend out of the freezer & fermenting).

How long would you expect it to take, start to finish? I'll probably be starting around 2000... And what can I do with the skin after I've removed it? Naturally, with my luck it'll be muntjac I get - but it is all good eating.

Very interested in your smoker ideas...

 

[george]

I usually reckon that an hour will have it down to the main cuts and then it depends on the size of portions you want to take it down to. The hardest part for me is splitting it down the spine - I'm sure a quality butcher would laugh at my efforts. For jerky you'll want to bone it out completely so I'd look at another 4 hours or so to get the best cuts (I'm not very fast!). You can always take it down into manageable pieces and freeze the majority of it to work on another time. It can be quite a tiresome job, so doing it in 3 or 4 go's might be easier.

After you've worked on the first pieces you'll have a better idea of how long things will take. If you're using a small dehydrator or making jerky in the oven you'll have to freeze the majority of it while you wait anyway.

I tend to bin the skins - sounds like sacrelige to some I know but after acouple of really smelly failures I decided to leave that to others

I'll post some details of the smoker as soon as I get things working and do a few tests.

Good luck with the butchering

 

[george]

Well I just got a nice fat little red deer hind for the freezer - about 90lbs dressed weight. This year they're in really good condition - I haven't seen this much fat on a wild deer for a few years now!

I butchered most of it last night, I'll freeze some, I'll try drying some for jerky, hopefully I'll get the smoker working properly and hot smoke some ( and I promise I'll post the details if I do!) and I might even try salting some of the meat - but that's about the extent of what I usually do.

I got to wondering though if there's anything else that I could do with the meat to preserve it - I've got a few pounds that I'm happy to experiment with - has anyone got any ideas?

George

 

[george]

P.S. Espy - how did your's go?

George

 

[ESpy]

Still waiting...
:-(

 

[Gary]

Remember the movie the Thing!!

Knead the skin away from the meat with your fist Pete -other than that its a big rabbit or chicken.

 

[Andy]

i asked my dad about this and we reckon if you have a big step ladder and a mate to hold it you could hang the deer up on them. a kukri would be a good big knife

 

[Buckshot]

I've sorted quite a few deer in my job
I've never needed to use anything bigger than a four inch knife and a saw.
I've seen a professional stalker take a warm Roe buck, gralloch, skin, joint (including removing the head) and even remove the mask ready for the head to be mounted using only a four inch blade. Possible if you cut in the right places. I'm not that skillful so I resort to a saw aswell

It's a sound plan to treat it like a big rabbit. If you're looking to eat the beast yourself it doesn't matter how you cut it up as long as it suits you.

This is how I normally do it...

I normally hang it for 10 days in the winter (less in the summer), I've just finished dealing with two I shot after Christmas. I slotted a metal bar through the hocks and suspended them inbetween two shelving units in my garage. Extremly heavy to lift both at the same time :roll:

Take it down when you're ready to start, skin the back legs while on the floor. then when they're clear lift it back up and suspend it as before, you can now work on the carcass without needing to move it again.

Remove the rest of the skin moving downwards, then start jointing from the lowest part (front legs) moving upwards. By the end you should have two rear legs swinging from the bar/ hooks or whatever you've used to suspend it from.

Hope this helps


Mark

 

[Roving Rich]

Get much spare venison? You might not be that far from me, and it sounds like roadkill is off the menu now :-( :-D
Rich

 

[Buckshot]

You would not believe the amount of friends I've got when it comes to venison :!: :!: :!:

I'm planning to take 6-8 Roe does this year and perhaps 1-2 bucks plus any suitable Mutjac I come across, so in answer to your question, I'm going to have some venison but I'm not sure if any will be spare. All my freinds and relations like it (I've not managed to get them to try squirrel yet though) and I've got back orders coming out of my ears :shock: so to speak

This year's cull is more than I usually do because the population has suddenly increased so needs controling.

I love stalking - deer that is. The amount of wildlife that's about at 5 in the morning is amazing and it doesn't expect you to be out there. I've almost tripped over a badger I got that close, and once I was stalking accross a set aside field to a doe, looked behind me to see a Roe fawn on the edge of a wood. I stopped and this fawn came up to me and sniffed my hand :!: :!: Amazing, I packed up and went home after that - it doesn't get any better than that

I'll stop rabbiting on now ('scuse the pun)

Mark

 

[Roving Rich]

I always have a job to get rid of Venison, if it doesn't arrive pre packaged most people don't want to know!
Cheers
Rich

 

[Kukriman]

GUys,
I have been following your thread.
The biggest deer I have been apart of harvesting is a large moose...several elk...Wapiti...and many many deer and antelope (American Pronghorn)

Deer run from 120 pounds to 300 depending on species and area...antelope are smaller . Elk will run 700 too 900 pounds. Moose will run up and ove a thousand.

Point is we have never used a saw to split the carcass. Ever not once in 30 years.Numerous animals were harvested in wilderness that was inaccessible by vehicle. It was necessary to bone the animal where it dropped. The moose was skiined withouth the aid of a single tree or hoist. We worked on the ground. First separating one side, then spreading the skin, rolling the animal onto the separated skin and doint the other side. Then it was quartered and packed out.

Why do you bother splitting such a small critter?
kukriman

 

[george]

Hi Kukriman

You're right - you don't need to do any of that stuff, like you say you can bone it out right there on the ground, and I would do if I had to do it in the field. (i've done it that way for wild pigs)
However I hang the carcass whole for a couple of weeks before I get down to butchering it so its already hanging from a gambrel when I start. I'll split it down the spine to make it easier to get some of the traditional cuts of meat more easily than if its lying on the ground and rather than mess about it makes the whole thing cleaner and easier. (If you want to take out a rack of ribs with the chine bone still in it its the only way to do it.)

Up here we cull animals to keep the herds in good condition, and its easier to shoot the days quota (they're gralloched and cooled straight away) - then throw them in the back of the argo and take them all back to the deer larder where they're skinned, head off, feet off, washed and then hung and chilled straight away before the game dealer comes to collect them.

Although the herds are officially wild deer - to be honest they are more like semi wild. It's not as if you have to stalk a single animal for days and days just to get a shot at it. The stalkers up here will easily get 5 or 6 deer each on a good day - so you can probably figure that it makes more sense then to get them off the hill and into the deer larder before beginning any butchering.

If I was heading for the hills with my rifle in one hand and a hunting permit in the other and I knew that the only way to get the meat back home was to carry it on my back, then I'd do it the same way you do.

I don't know if I'd like to carry a Moose on my back though!!

George

 

[Adi007]

Last time I was inScotland and came across deer, I could have lured a whole herd into the back of the land rover with a bag of feed! They didn't seem that hard to get close too ... although that probably chenges as soon as the first shot is let off!

Although the herds are officially wild deer - to be honest they are more like semi wild. It's not as if you have to stalk a single animal for days and days just to get a shot at it. The stalkers up here will easily get 5 or 6 deer each on a good day - so you can probably figure that it makes more sense then to get them off the hill and into the deer larder before beginning any butchering.

 

[george]

Last time I was inScotland and came across deer, I could have lured a whole herd into the back of the land rover with a bag of feed! They didn't seem that hard to get close too ... although that probably chenges as soon as the first shot is let off!

Adi

Just try getting out the car with a stick or something in your hand that looks like a gun - the buggers will be off like a shot!!!

George

 

[Adi007]

Really!?

Next time I'll have to try that ... they seemed quite happy to pose for the camera though!!!

Last time I was inScotland and came across deer, I could have lured a whole herd into the back of the land rover with a bag of feed! They didn't seem that hard to get close too ... although that probably chenges as soon as the first shot is let off!

Adi

Just try getting out the car with a stick or something in your hand that looks like a gun - the buggers will be off like a shot!!!

George

 

[george]

For the past couple of weeks there's been a red deer hind living in my back garden (sheltering from the blizzards and coooold northerlies we've got just now) - she's fine if she sees me walking about out the front - fine if I take a picture of her through the window - she doesn't even mind the kids or the dogs too much (they're kept away from the back garden by a 7 foot fence) but the minute I actually step through the back gate with a camera in my hand she's off like a shot!

I reckon they pick up more about body language and posture than they do about what you're actually carrying. But if you look too purposeful when you stride out then they just disappear :-?

George