Wear gloves when cleaning deer and other game!

[Jevyod]

Well I guess I have been very fortunate! I have gutted and skinned 15-20 deer and never wore gloves. Never even got a rash. But live and learn. Thanks for the advice, I will get some for my pack. That's what makes this place so awesome! All the great advice! I do have a question. When using gloves to field dress a deer, do I need the shoulder length ones? I am guessing that the point is to prevent blood from contacting your skin at all??

[Garyshome]

Good advice fo more then just field dressing.

[freebullet]

I have always used gloves to dress game. Even after a few old hunting buddies poked fun over it.

One of my "caution be darned" buddies drank from a garden hose that was laying in the yard on a job. They had a septic system and low and behold he was sick for over a month with 7000$ in med bills. I'm thankful for all the safety training I've been through, it's really helped avoid problems. If you've ever been through the boringness of an o.s.h.a. class and stayed awake you should realize how easily things go wrong.

[1Shirt]

For years I have just been wearing latex surgical gloves. After reading this however, think I will switch to dish washing gloves.
1Shirt!

[madsenshooter]

Well I guess I have been very fortunate! I have gutted and skinned 15-20 deer and never wore gloves. Never even got a rash. But live and learn. Thanks for the advice, I will get some for my pack. That's what makes this place so awesome! All the great advice! I do have a question. When using gloves to field dress a deer, do I need the shoulder length ones? I am guessing that the point is to prevent blood from contacting your skin at all??

Yes fortunate. It took a long time for the vermin to grow to the point that I knew something bad was going on. Visits to lots of different Drs, lots of misdiagnosis. I was even kidnapped once when I went to a hospital unable to talk and could hardly write, managed to spell out worms after 3 or 4 tries, then got shipped off to a psychiatric unit where they gave me something that knocked me out for three days! The first real outward sign was a stiff neck, and an electrical-like shock when I turned my head a certain way, known as Lhermitte's sign. That was many years ago and things continued to progress, unknown to me. Vermin produce neurochemicals that keep you from feeling a lot of what's going on! In time I developed a lump in my neck, not a lump one can see on the outside, but stiff, hardened tendon, muscle, and nerve cells that have been infected with microfilaria and calcified. If you read any of the deer symptoms, you'll note that it does the same to them in the neck area. That is slowly softening and going away, and other similar lumps throughout my body are too. They can even worm their way into the meninges of the brain, and often do when they are in a creature other than than the preferred host. I have went through a couple of encephalopathies, a swelling of the brain or brainstem, and nerve problems throughout my body. Lots of you guys have enough immune response, you might never get anything though skinning barehanded. I'm a relative rarity here in the US, type B blood, less than 3% of the US population. But cleaning without protection is a risk and I don't want to see others go through it. I still have something moving in my hands, probably the adults that produce the microfilaria. The movement has naught to do with my muscles, but is in the lymphatic duct above the muscles, from my pinky up to my wrist, where it appears they have sealed my hands off from normal lymph flow. Microfilaria that they produce escape into the blood flow at the ends of the fingers. They are relatively easy to kill, the adults however, are very chemically resistant. The unpredictable movement in my hands makes shooting interesting, but I once knew a fellow who had parkinsons that knew how to make the striker fall at the right moment despite his constant shaking. I'm not as good at it as he was, I think he fed his family almost exclusively on groundhog! Those also carry some nasty stuff, but I'm not going there.

[big bore 99]

Very good advice. When I was a kid, my grandfather nicked himself while cleaning rabbits. After awhile, his whole arm swelled up with redlines running up it. Then he got a very large lump in a lypmth gland under his arm. He was sick for a very long time. This was many years ago and no one knew anything about it.

[RP]

Ok if you need gloves to gut and clean the deer then place it on ice after its cooled is it safe then? Or what the life spanned of this stuff?

[madsenshooter]

I can't say about these species, but other species of helminths that many animals have, strongyloides, can survive being frozen. Sorta makes you want swear off rare meat! Refrigeration/freezing does not stop the growth of bacteria, only slows it. Oh, some won't have what it takes to survive the temp.

[tomme boy]

Back when we party hunted, I cleaned over 20 deer a year myself. And that was over 15 years of doing that. Some years it was a lot higher than that. I've never wore gloves. Can't hunt anymore due to health reasons and not from the deer cleanings.

[texassako]

I learned to clean kills without gloves, and we never hunted with any who did wear them. I always use gloves these days since we usually have a case of them around the house, and my Dad even picked up the habit of keeping gloves in his pack as well. There are some nasty things out there I don't really want to contract. The gloves are handy for all sorts of messy tasks, especially when out on my little place with no running water to wash up.

[wallenba]

Spotted liver disease, tularemia, in rabbits. Can be deadly.

[luvtn]

Madsenshooter, I don't know where to begin. Some of your information is ok, a lot of it is bogus. "
Helminths are parasitic worms that feed on a living host to gain nourishment and protection, while causing poor nutrient absorption, weakness and disease in the host. These worms and larvae live in the small bowel and are referred to as intestinal parasites.
The following groups of worms are classed as helminths:

• Nematodes or roundworms
• Trematodes, which includes flukes or flatworms
• Cestodes or tapeworms
• Monogenans, also members of the flatworm phylum.

The method of transmission is via hand to mouth. Or fecal/oral routes.
nueropathy is numbness, tingling, and the "electric shock feeling.
The swelling is lymphedema, generally caused by damage to the lymph system. If you have this consult a "complete decongestion therapist."
Blood borne diseases are bacterial usually like coocidiosis, brucellosis, tubereculosis, histoplasmosis, leptosporosis etc.
I agree we should be careful. I and a lot of my buds over the years have skinned and cleaned game with no problems. I am sorry you have had problems.
Filaria are what mosquitos carry and pass around like malaria etc.
luvtn

[gmsharps]

I have used latex gloves but prefer the Nitrile gloves. They are a bit thicker but still gives you a decent touch. It's better to be safe than sorry.

gmsharps

[Omega]

I started using nitrile gloves due to a lack of water to wash up. Now that I solved that issue I still wear them due to ease of cleanup. I have only recently started hearing about catching anything due to field dressing, I wonder why it never surfaced before? I guess taking a bite of the heart of your first deer is now taboo?

[N4AUD]

Oh, and don't throw your used gloves down in the woods. That shouldn't need saying but someone here said they saw gloves at the gut pile. It's pretty easy to put them into a zip lock bag and dispose of them the right way.
I didn't start out wearing gloves field dressing deer but after my BIL got sick I figured I'd rather be safe than sorry. It's kind of like wearing hearing protection when you are shooting. I wish someone had told me about it when I was younger, maybe I wouldn't have this constant ringing in my ears and I would be able to carry on a conversation with people who are soft spoken. When I was a kid I never saw a set of ear plugs or muffs on anybody shooting. Never saw gloves on anyone dressing game either. I'm a lot older now and hopefully just a little wiser.

[madsenshooter]

luvtn, the microfilaria are circulating in the blood, usually near the skin, waiting to be picked up by the biting insect. But they go pretty much wherever they want, and they are infective. Even tapeworms, which are supposed to live inside the bowel, aren't always found inside, neither are the critters I have mentioned above. I once started to skin a flea infested rabbit. Tapeworms were inside the abdominal cavity, which is the same as in the lymph as there are ducts which empty into the cavity. Get some blood on your hand, wipe the corner of your mouth, same as fecal-oral, the microfilaria are infective. I wish they'd have stayed in my gut, I'd likely have little problem then. But they don't. If you read any on the species I listed you'd know that. Like the sheep and deer, my face and nose got bigger from the microfilaria circulating under the skin, and like they do in deer and horses, they produced a lump in my neck, that whoopee, is going away. Oh heck, I'm not going to spell it out for you, suffice it to say, it happens, and like I said, I've seen it in other hunters who have no idea what's in them, nor do the doctors they see. It hasn't got them down yet, like it did me, but in due time it will, and the Drs. will have no idea what's causing it. Just be safe, cause they can sure make you sorry. There is a lot about these critters that science has not discovered yet. I don't wish to get in any arguments about it, you'd have to live it to fully understand it. Just bear in mind that the critters are there, and be safe. I believe mine came from finishing off a deer I'd hit with my car. He got down into a ditch, I straddled him, cut his throat and my ankle at the same time. Darned hawkbill knife!

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

I like these gloves been using them or ones like it for about 25 years , I put them on and field dress then take them off turning them inside out I am holding my knife with one glove and the liver with the other as I take them off when I get back to the house with the deer to hang I get my knife out and start the liver soaking

http://www.farmandfleet.com/products...Q#.VOOhPy59bs0

[tdoyka]

my little brother does not use any type of gloves, i use them if they are there, don't use them if they aren't. my dad uses them for everything. eventually myself and my little brother are going to find a rash or something like lyme disease, and then we will learn!!!

[madsenshooter]

If you get into the Merck veterinary manual, you'll see, some of these critters can even live in the saliva of pets. Think about that next time you see someone letting a dog kiss them!

[13Echo]

When I did forensic autopsy examinations we always wore the heavy kitchen type rubber gloves. Nice texture for gripping, heavy enough to resist puncture from bone splinters, faairly good sensitivity, and easily cleaned for reuse.

Jerry Liles