THIS POST IS ABOUT RAW MEAT. BE WARNED. IT CONTAINS IMAGES.
Recently, a few hunters went hunting. Part of harvesting larger animals includes allowing the meat to hang so that the body heat can fully leave it. If you freeze the meat while it is still warm, it'll spoil and be ruined. Large walk-in coolers can work for this purpose, but, in cold weather, many hunters will just hang the meat outside while it cools. This is where a problem can come in.
HOW HIGH IS HIGH ENOUGH?
Again, be warned, as soon will see. The neighbor had a nice buck, with a good amount of meat on it. Since there was already a place to hang a deer near his house, he hung it there. But...
Unfortunately, it was not really high enough to keep it safe. As you can tell, almost half of the deer is now gone. Since the deer was hung so low, dogs were able to eat away at it. I'm not sure if any wild dogs or coyotes also partook of the feast, but some of the dogs from the nearby neighborhood certainly did.
The neck of the deer is basically gone, one of the front legs is completely missing and the other one might as well be. While the tenderloins, backstraps, and the hind quarters will still all be able to be used to feed his family, obviously there was still a good amount lost.
If you compare it to this deer, which I shot, you will notice a difference. Now trust me, I'm not trying to say, "Look how smart I am compared to the neighbor." That's not it at all. But, I do want to make sure that you understand the difference and why there is a difference. If any of us can learn from someone else's mistake, we might as well, right?
Hanging an animal to cool outside is just fine. Many have been doing it for thousands of years and we are still doing it today. With the proper weather, the harvested animal will cool just fine and the bugs won't be around to try to eat it while it cools. However, if animals are able to get to it, they will!
Even though I had hung my deer higher, I still decided to move it before I left it for the night. If you can see the bright green strap that it is hanging from, you'll also notice the pale yellow one that it is not hanging on. I wanted to move it further out from the tree truck, to help possums, raccoons, and other potential threats.
Although the deer that got raided by the canines still served a purpose, since it fed the dogs, and the rest can still be eaten by the family, I think that we can agree it is best to try to avoid situations like this. In the end, it is just a simple lesson in life, but, unless we are exposed to a situation like this, we may not consider it in time to avoid making the same mistakes ourselves. The @little-peppers obviously got a chance to learn this lesson before they'll ever need to put it into practice, and maybe now you can learn it too! Hope it helps.
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-it-is-hanging-high-enough
Until next time…
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Very important knowledge shared. Thanks bro, from a fellow hunter.
Doing a barbique with the fresh meat done by oneself is an experience out of this world. Personally i love beef of a young animal.
did you still eat that?
Just be sure to STERILIZE what's life of that meat LOL, I'm just thinking about the saliva from the coyotes / dogs carries various diseases that can affect the meat's quality. They could place the meat onto the ice, and then pour a mixture of saltwater over the meat, letting it soak thoroughly for 24 hours.
Good point!
Don't lose anything. Every food within reach is dogfood, anything not nailed down is a cat toy.
I grew up in an area with wolves, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, possums and thieves of the two legged kind. So starting with my granddad we learned to hang things close to the house, really high and away from branches. Granddad had an old porch on the back of the farm house where he could hang smaller game. The dogs patrolled outside. That generally kept the vermin from getting at the meat.
lovely blog, life heal for lose,,, like your post, thanks sir,, thanks for sharing following up voted
Interesting to keep in mind, I did not know that the heat had to be let out completely from the body. Interesting facts if I ever have to survive in nature.
Unless this was your neighbor's first deer, I'm surprised he didn't have an issue before. Perhaps he just got lucky and hung it high enough before? I would guess his next one will be hung plenty high enough.
Might be. I think he's hunted before, so I am not sure.
Great post!
I would probably put it in to the freezer than keep it hanging outside. You don’t know what animal or bird can touch it. But that’s just me.
Thanks for sharing @papa-pepper
I hope you're having a good day
I did not know before, hanging the body, left the body temperature, first today I found out to give important thanksgiving to your blog
Now you know!
Many years ago, when I was a child we lived in a locality there was no electrical power line, here there was no refrigerator, with my parents we made a puddle, which is neither more nor less the corne cut in strips and we put them to dry, the big problem that We had these custiones, the height that hung the meat or where the meat hung, when you were not attacked by the dogs or the wolves you were attacked by the red ormigas a variety of ormigas that eat meats.
Thank you very much dear friend @ papa-pepper for sharing this material.
I take the opportunity to wish you a great 2018, full of happiness, peace, love and prosperity. for you and yours
Have a nice day
Cool, thanks for sharing your memories!
this venison is a very steady comrade, still very natural.
very tasty in cooking and roasted.
people say danging deer can be a strong medicine yes friends.
thanks @papa-pepper for sharing nice post, and i will upvote and resteem.
Everything is hungry and will take advantage of food if it is presented.
I never ate deer that was shot by me or any of my family members, we live in a populated country, and hunting is only for a little few, but my father had rabbits and when I was little and he killed them in my presence. For me that was quite normal, he did it very quick and the animals didn't suffer. We ate the meat at Christmas or on special Sundays. It was really a treat.
That will be some excellent food for your family to get you through the winter. Well done!
I'm envious of your lifestyle. Do you eat any of it raw? I hear that wild animals living in natural habitats are safe to eat raw; they're the most nutritious, especially their livers, brains and other offal.
livers are the filter for any creature, yummy if you wish to eat toxins ;-)
haha :)
Have a looksie here: https://chriskresser.com/natures-most-potent-superfood/
;-)
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,44&qsp=4&q=liver+toxins+%22filtration+and+adsorption%22
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412011000481
Yes, these are saying what a great source of nutrients are available. In your last link, it says...
uncontaminated areas....Show me where those are...
This is indeed educating, but practising might be an issue because of space. Animals can't just be hung in any environment sort of.
But I like the idea. Nature seem to be the best form of preservation.
Very nice article :)
It must suck a lot to hunt an animal only to end up losing must of its meat.
I guess you guys have managed to be totally self sufficient?
Hello, what a great article, it is very well detailed, it must have taken a lot of time, right?
You deserve to be more popular on the steemit platform because your work provided and exciting and very impressive;)
Nice to meet you, my new friend.
I hope you can go see my content on my blog;) and you give your opinion, ok?
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Have a good day ;)
Wow... well I bet they learned a lesson!
That must have been frustrating.
Good point though, gotta hang it where nothing can reach! And cutting off the head and feet and all made it that much shorter and easier to get up high. :D
When I was a kid and my family would butcher hogs, they would hang the carcass from the bucket of a front-end loader. It was in the barnyard though, where there was probably less risk of thievery by predators than hanging in the woods...
Good advice. This has happened to me before - but only once. Me thinks that you are a brave soul to post these images. I would think that you might get some backlash, so to speak. For now on I won't worry so much about posting some hunting photos. Thanks.
I am a meatasouros, although mine comes from the store wrappped in plastic. These kind of posts are important not just for the homesteading hunting folk but for the education of people like myself who buy fillets from the fridge section.
You are a good man. Many of us live in a bubble and don't want to see the reality of the meat market. Your warnings were respectful of that. Interestingly, the most traumatic images I have ever seen of animals have been sent to me by vegan animal lovers. I understand they are passionate and moved to action for those reasons, but they didn't offer the warning of potential vicarious distress.
Thanks for continuing to lead the way, steeming with integrity and respect for all.
I hope the little peps and mumma had a nice chistmas. x
Not only did you hang the deer higher you also removed the head and part of the legs giving animals less areas to grab at the deer.
gonna show my husband this one, thanks for sharing