Road Kill: It's Fresh, It's Organic, It's Free ( it's DELICIOUS!)

[mom'sfolly]

I think I would be very careful to eat anything I did not see hit. I would also keep to what most people would consider normal food animals. It is also illegal in many states, including here in Texas. Kinda silly with the number of roadkill deer I see on a daily basis.

 

[HEChicken]

Hmmmm....haven't got to the point where we eat roadkill ourselves but last summer we collected road kill and brought it home. I took an old coffee can, drilled tons of holes in the bottom until it looked like a sieve, another couple in the top to thread a shoe lace through (so it would hang), and after that, whenever we found road kill, we popped it in the can. The flies lay eggs in it, the maggots feast on the carcass, and then drop through the holes in the bottom where they are snatched up by the chooks. Actually, I kept a planter base under it and almost all the maggots landed in that. Once maggots start dropping, the chooks hang around intently, each wanting to be the first to grab them as they fall. When I opened the coop door in the morning, they made a beeline for the planter base to eat the ones that fell during the night. Great source of protein for them! The best was a rabbit DH found. After the regular maggots, we had a crop of soldier fly larvae. I let the chooks have some of those (they were too big to fit through the holes) and then put the rest in the compost bin where they did a great job of aiding the composting process.

 

[AK Michelle]

In Alaska we have a list of Non-Profits (Churches, food banks, boy scouts, schools, anyone who can make use of the meat without making a profit) that pick up roadkill. A moose is too much meat to just throw away and with hundreds killed by cars each year, that would be a whole lot of $$$ for clean up, removal, disposition, etc.

The troopers call the next Organization on the list and they come and get it. Our school gets one every year, the kids help process it, teaches them where dinner comes from, gives them a healthy respect for their food AND we get yummy moose to eat on our overnight field trips.

Waste not - want not.

 

[Attack Chicken]

We always say here when driving out hunting or so and a car is speeding down the road passing us "If he hits a deer It's mine!".

Did see a deer get hit by the car in front of us a couple years ago. Flipped the doe about 15 feet or so up in the air turning head of heels. It hit the ground and my parents were already checking on the female driver and her 3 kids which she didn't have in carseats or seatbelt!

Anyways I thought we were going to have deer backstraps for dinner but the dang thing got up and ran away LOL You should of seen the look on our eyes. Just simply amazing!

If we do see a squirrel, rabbit,deer, pheasant, quail and any other game species like that hit infront of us. Or we know it's fresh we usually look to see if anything is edible, if not we drive on.

Call us hillbillies or whatever

but we don't like good meat to go to waste. I might start picking up animals for taxidermy purposes but not yet.

AC

 

[mom'sfolly]

I want moose burger and I want it now!!!!

It's very cool that AK has that program. I don't think I ever saw a roadkill moose when I was a kid; it probably went in someone's freezer so fast it didn't even know it was dead.

 

[HorseFeatherz NV]

Quote:
While growing up in Michigan and Wisconsin - we were grateful for road kill. We were not hippie people, just very, very poor - and we did for ourselves - no help from "big brother".


Yes, if we saw a dead deer, our parents pulled over and we all got out and loaded the deer into the car. Fresh kills went to us people and older questionable kills went to the dogs.


We did not snack on any other road kill - no dogs, cats, racoons, frogs, birds or such.

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

We've gotten deer fresh-off-the road before...

I remember one time I saw broken glass all over the road and a "dead" deer. I parked, fully expecting to put the deer in my car. Walked up, it was breathing and it's eyes were closed. It's neck was obviously broken. Went to the house and got a gun to put the deer out of it's misery.

After that we loaded it into the back of the truck and got about 20 lbs. of meat from it. (It was tiny and the other part of it was too badly bruised to use.)

As we were loading it a guy drove up and said "Yeah, I saw the woman hit it and I saw it here about 6 hours ago. Figured if nobody came and got it I'd load it up myself." After we told him we had to shoot it he looked really ashamed of himself.

I can't believe the person who hit it didn't check to see and end it's misery. Good Lord.

Unless the animal is flattened on the road, please get out and make sure the animal is dead!

 

[Illia]

See there, that's good roadkill to me. If the animal is for sure freshly dead, then I see no issue in eating it. Especially if it is deer or elk. Good stuff.


But otherwise, honestly I see so little roadkill out here, I think it's just easier to grab free giveaways from other people and butcher them yourself. (goats, cattle, chickens, even llamas)

 

[Randy]

I've eaten a lot of road killed deer. Even found a fresh turkey on the highway one time. Last year there was a dead goat right in the middle of the road in front of our house. I'm not sure where it came from. Must have fallen out of a truck. I tried to butcher it but couldn't get past the smell. Not a rotten smell, it was fresh, it just smelled to much like, well goat I guess.

 

[sourland]

My name is George and I have eaten road killed deer and cottontails.