Can we just stick it in a gallon Ziploc bag and freeze it... And just thaw it out later and then scrape out all the guts and chop it up and get out the glands and whatnot later?
I would not, but not for the reasons stated above. A traditional way to manage certain game birds is to "hang" them. There are rules to that. Temperature is very important, you don't hang a bird that is torn up, you don't gut them. If you gut them they would dry out too much during hanging. That raw meat exposed to the atmosphere would be unsanitary and unappealing.
Any bird you butcher needs to age past rigor mortis unless you cook it immediately upon dispatch. If you don't age it past rigor mortis it can be very stiff when you cook it, sometimes pretty inedible. The traditional way for us to age it is to clean it first and then store it in an ice chest or refrigerator until rigor has passed. Butchers have coolers for this purpose.
I don't do it that way. I kill them, skin and gut them, and cut them onto serving pieces, then immediately freeze them. I take them out of the freezer on a Sunday and keep them in the refrigerator until I cook them Thursday so they can thaw and age. You can wait until after freezing to age them.
When you cool, freeze, or thaw them do not stack them too deep. If you have a pile of meat the meat in the middle is insulated by the other meat so it can be much slower to cool, freeze, or thaw. That can be unhealthy even if they are gutted.
If you freeze a bird without gutting it the guts will be the last thing to freeze or thaw. That's why temperature is so important in hanging a bird. And hanging exposes the body so it can cool rapidly, they are not piled up.
You are probably thinking what is the difference in hanging a bird after it is frozen and thawed instead of hanging it immediately after killing it as long as the temperature stays low enough to stop bacteria from multiplying. From that aspect not much.
My thoughts (and you may think it is silly) is that when water freezes it expands. It can break walls and barriers. It just doesn't feel right for the thawed liquids in their guts, crops, gizzard and body cavity to be sitting there and maybe soaking in while it ages. It is probably not a health hazard if you wash it well but I just don't like the feelings about that. It's the freezing and thawing I don't like, not the thought of hanging a bird.
spoiling can also be accelerated during the thawing with the guts and digestive track full of who knows what.
