I did forget to mention that most of you hunt for a "Big Mature Buck". This will have a stronger flavor and the meat will be much more tougher than a young doe would. This wouldalso hold true if you butchered a older beef bull, boarhog, ram sheep etc...

I was not implying that you should not properly gut your animal, but I do not think it is as a important point as most may think. As I have said in the past I pickup road killed deer. I usually do not gut these deer since the gut is usually ruptured anyway. I just skin it and remove all of the outside meat and leave thecavity lining in tact. The only meat that I cannot take is the smalltenderloins which are located inside the cavity wall. It is by far more important to get the carcass or meat cooled down quickly. In Iowa this is usually not a problem because of all the cold weather. We usually fill the cavity with snow after gutting it.

Again I am not implying that you should not properly gut a deer, but things happen while gutting and people should not be afraid of usingthe meat. It should be properly cleaned with fresh water as soon as possible. I should mention that in any slaughter facilityoccasionally a rupturegut may happen and the meat is still used and sent to the consumer without any knowledge to the consumer. There are certain things they have to do in cases such as this, but the meat is not just thrown away.

What makes a deer different than any other animal?