I Have a deer, am clueless, but processed it anyways - UPDATE

[PurpleChicken]

Thanks all. It was just euthanized(shot) 5 minutes before I posted
this. The officer came to my door to tell me we had an injured deer on
the property. I found it then called him over. The doe had both back legs
broken but was very much alive. The officer dispatched the poor
animal with his sidearm. Me and Drum just pulled it down the bank
(around 100 feet) to the side of our barn. It's still warm.

I feel 10 times more anxious than the first time I processed a chicken.

My kid is ready to do it.

 

[chicken_boy_Kurt]

P wants you to come and pick her up to help gut it.

 

[buck-wild-chick]

dang I wish I could come up there and teach you how to do it pc, its pretty cool ! LOL

 

[PurpleChicken]

Ok, I just read the page EggChel referenced and watched a youtube
video Birdboy sent me. I am going to attempt to gut it.

Deep breath.....

Buck-Wild I wish you or PP were here to help.

Another Deep Breath.....

 

[brandywine]

It's not that difficult; you've already processed chickens.

Prop the doe up with her shoulders higher than her butt -- don't hang to dress, it makes a moving target, real disaster. Someone to hold the rear legs apart and steady is a big help.

First carefully cut a slit in just the outer layer of skin, from the end of her sternum to her pubis. Use a small sharp knife. Wear rubber gloves for a good grip.

Peel back the outer skin a little bit to give yourself room.

Then very carefully cut the muscle layer over the abdomen -- follow your first slit -- without nicking any of the entrails.

They'll sort of slide out part way. A deer's rumen is *huge,* don't be alarmed. Make sure you don't damage bowel, bladder, or gall bladder. They'll taint the meat.

Take a piece of string or zip tie, reach in, and tie off the end of the bowel as close as you can to the rectum. Tie it tight. Then, from the outside, cut out the rectum, free the end of the bowel, and pull it back "inside". With a few more cuts, or sometimes no cuts, the whole abdominal contents will slide out of the deer onto the ground.

Then carefully cut through the diaphragm, reach way up, and sever the esophagus as high as you can reach. All that adbominal stuff can now be slid away. You free the lungs and heart with a few more cuts.

Save and eat liver and kidneys and heart. Or feed to dogs or chooks. Dogs like the lungs and tripe. (So do some people, but I ain't one of 'em.) I separate the stomachs (tripe) from the rest of the digestive tract, slit it open, and hose out most of the contents, then cut it up for the best natural raw dog food in the world.

Discard the entrails where the possums and coyotes can safely enjoy them, away from other people's dogs.

I then hang the deer for a couple days (if temps are below 45 and above 30) with the skin on. If temps too high, or too freezing, I skin and butcher immediately.

First saw off head and legs below the hock joint -- regular hacksaw works fine.

Skinning is easy -- more pull and less knife than you want to do.

If you skin and then hang, the meat will oxidize too much for my taste.

Eat tenderloins -- which are along the spine *inside* the thorax -- tonight.

Butchering is not hard. Best to bone out everything -- bone lends a gamey taste to the meat after freezing.

Good on you for not letting this poor animal's life go to waste.

If by chance the meat is gamey (could happen with a road kill, but not likely since she is so fresh), use or give away for dog food. Dogs don't mind gamey. They like it.

 

[BirdBoy88]

Quote:
You can do it!

just take your time and you will be fine

 

[Hobbley_Farm]

This is MR Hobbly Farm (Mark) I had to reply b/c this just happened to me last Friday night OK, here we go!
Step one, back legs are broke so you will have to tie it up by it's head high enough to where the back legs are off the ground.

Step two: get the sharpest knife you have, cut a circle around it's kneck just below the rope where you are hanging it up. WAIT, this will take for ever! if you want to call PM me and I'll send you my number or you can send me yours, you still have time to clean it before anything goes bad, Mark

 

[Buster]

Good luck PC. I read the link that eggchel posted and it was good info. The first time yourself is the hardest. After that it's a lot easier. My first time was with a calf that was hit on the road. DW's grandpa told me that if I wanted to get practice for cleaning a deer then go out and clean that calf. So I did, by myself, along side the road. After gutting it I hung it up in the barn to skin it. It was an experience but I know I could do it again and know what I'm doing next time. I had seen it done several times before and helped out but doing it yourself is a whole other ball game.

Good luck to you. Let me know how it turns out.

 

[BeardedChick]

Step one, back legs are broke so you will have to tie it up by it's head high enough to where the back legs are off the ground.

Depends on where they are broken. We always hung them up by the hock joint, with a meat hook through the thinnest part that is just above the joint.​

 

[Rosalind]

Oh, if you've done chickens, you can do this. Same principle applies: remove the guts & skin & head/feet as sanitarily as possible, then cut into useful pieces.

I think deer are easier, once they are hung up. They're bigger and less fiddly than poultry. The smaller things are always more difficult to cut up than the big ones. Big critters, it's more difficult to cut the wrong thing or cut too deep.