field dressing
 

afriend of mineintroduced me to hunting this season and im pretty much hooked. ive been reading up on field dressing and all the things that your supposed todo after thekill but i am still not comfortable enough with the process. anyone recommend any books or videos that show the field dressing and butchering processes.

RE: field dressing
 

Just get in there and do it. That is the way to learn! There is no right way or wrong way . Just some are easier,quicker than others. There is no better place to start than with small game. think of Rabbits as mini deer.

RE: field dressing
 

Go down to off season and look at the post about processing you own deer. It has a great link

RE: field dressing
 

After 64 years of hunting and living off the results, I can say for my own tastes, the sooner you get the hide off and the guts out, the better the meat will be. If most people handled beef like they do venison, they would not eat beef, either.



"Gun control means using both hands."

RE: field dressing
 

The worst chopped up, hacked up, piece of meat you can "destroy" is still good stew.:D

Practice makes perfect.

RE: field dressing
 

I taught myself to do a basic processing, as long as you're not hung up on having bone in chops it isn't hard. Hang the deer, open the abdominal cavity and pull out the intestines, cut carefully around the anal sphincter and remove it from the inside after tying it off to prevent contamination. The rest is simply skinning the carcass, and cutting the meat from the bone. My wife and I like roasts and stew meat chunks, so this works well for me.

RE: field dressing
 

Just cut it open and make it happen. It's not difficult at all. I like the above mention of starting with a rabbit, think of it as a mini- deer. The biggest mistake that can be made is cutting some of the guts, intestine, stomach..... open and getting it on the meat so if you can keep from doing that your pretty much have it made.

RE: field dressing
 

I have field dressed 7 deer and 2 pronghorn antelope. Whenever I do this I am always nervous about contaminating the meat with either urine or feces. Frankly, when I am cutting around on the anus and the bladder, even with this amount of experience I am nervous and uncertain about how to not cause trouble for myself. But here is the important point, all of this meat has tasted good! I think I make it more complicated than it is.

I always field dress at the kill site and as soon after the kill as possible. I take any desired pictures and immediately set to with my knife.

I get the animal on its back. I lift a pinch of skin near the butt but ahead of the anus and cut a slit into the skin, into the body cavity. I slip two fingers of my non-knife holding hand into the body cavity, finger pads touching towards my face, finger tips pointed upwards towards the head of the animal. I hold the knife with the sharp edge faced towards me, between the two fingers, and gently saw with the knife, while pulling up gently with two non-knife holding fingers to keep the skin away from the internal organs. Slipping the two non-knife holding fingers forwards as the cut progresses, I cut all the way up to the breast bone like this. Then I hold the knife in two hands and saw through the breastbone -- just a little to one side or the other of the sternum, cutting through soft cartiledge that joins the ribs to the sternum/breastbone -- up to the front of the deer. If you are saving the head of a handsome buck, you won't want to cut this far up on the skin, you will want to first "cape" the buck and peel back the skin out of the way.

With this cut made I roll the deer on its side and scoop out as much of the guts as I can. I then cut the diaphram loose from the body cavity. The diaphram is a thick membrane between the stomach and the lungs that attaches all the way around the inside of the body cavity. By raising and lowering, the diaphram causes the lungs to expell air and inhale air, during respiration of the live deer. Having cut this diaphram loose all the way around, reach with your knife and a hand up into the neck of the deer and cut loose the eating tube and breathing tubes of the deer. Be careful not to cut your hands!!! You can't see up there and everything is the same temperature. Pull the eating tube and windpipe out and everything should come loose from the front of the deer.

Now go to the butt of the deer and saw around the anus with your knife, cutting deeply. This theoretically should free the intestine, but it seems I always end up having to pull and jerk various tubing to get everything needed out of the deer. Cut off the udder of the doe, if a doe. Cut off the penis and testicles of the buck, if a buck. Everything should be out of the deer. If you have any feces in the body cavity, remove it. Obey any state laws about leaving proof of sex attached.

While you are working try to avoid getting dirt into the body cavity. You almost certainly will get some hair in there, but don't worry too much about this.

This field dressing process does not take very long, perhaps 10 minutes or less. Proficient people can probably accomplish this in much less time, maybe 2 minutes.

Get the deer hung up as soon as possible and let air circulate freely through the open body cavity. If you have access to water, you can hose down the open body cavity. In general water is bad for meat, because it supports growth of bacteria, but I personally don't think this is a bad idea. If you are concerned about a brief flushing causing bacterial growth, dry the body cavity with paper towels.

RE: field dressing
 

Good post Alsatian. That's pretty much all there is to it. It's like riding a bike. The first couple of times it's a bit scary. But the more times you do it, the easier it gets, and once you know what to do, you'll never forget.

RE: field dressing
 

I'll add when Iget home I always rinse out the cavity and prop it open with a piece of scrap wood /now I have a stainless rib spreader. To let it dry and cool quickly.