we will be hunting out of a camp this year. in the past in another state, we just hunted my land from the house so the birds got cleaned and put directly into the freezer. what do you guys recommend for proper care of a bird at camp when it may be a few days before we get to a freezer???
just a cooler and some ice ok??

a cooler should be ok. as long as there is plenty of ice and you're using a good cooler i don't see what the problem would be.

yep hunter06...we've done that before....pack the cavity with the ice too...

direct contact with the skin/flesh is ok??
sounds straight forward enough.
thanks for the info.

having the bird in a bag would most likely be best. ifi that's not possible it shouldn't be a problem. do you plan on keeping the whole bird or just the breast???

What's worked for me: remove beard and feet; fillet out the two breast halves; remove the legs as the breast halves - by cutting them away from the carcass leaving the feathers and skin intact on the carcass; pack the skinned meat in ziplocks, place on ice (or w/frozen water bottles)in a cooler. Bury the carcass. Make sure you keep your game check tag w/the meat as warranted.

-fsh

plan to keep the whole bird, hopefully for the deep fryer.
thanks again

Do you plan on having it mounted? If so talk to your taxidermist before you go. Even if you don't plan on it now, it's not a bad idea. You may get a real trophy and would hate it if it was ruined. I've used an extreme cooler with ice but never planned on having it mounted at that time.

No mount planned. just dinner, hopefully a fan and beard plack mount, thats it.

It would be better to have the bird in a bag.
Though it will most likely be ok, water and moisture are breeding ground for bacteria. I have worked in resturants for 8 years, and know what some water can grow into.
If your cooler gets too warm, that water will start to grow nasty and smelly things. At least if your bird is in a bag, it will not absorb any of it, though it wont take long for the meat to warm and that same process to begin happening there. Still, the meat will retain the temperature longer than the water around it.
Good luck!