Dressing and butchering a deer help

[Bazoo]

I have harvested one deer, a doe. I somehow skinned and gutted it without any help or advice. Then I butchered it into roasts and stew meat and dog food mostly.

Well I need some advice on how to field dress both a doe and a buck, and how to butcher the critter. Folks say, easy just to on YouTube. The issue is I don't know which videos are good vs which ones are garbage. I've seen folks ripping the hide off a deer with a 4wheeler for crying out loud.

So could those that have a sound idea of the proper way post a link to a video that will give me a sound education. Also, any website or post here that will give insight to the process would be helpful.

Thanks for any help.

Bazoo

[dk17hmr]

Hank Shaw has a cook book called "Buck, Buck, Moose" there's a how to butchering section in there that will show you how to break them down.

As far as YouTube Scott Rea Project or the bearded butchers.

[JBinMN]

I do not have any videos of field dressing & butchering to share with you to help, but I do have a video that you might enjoy watching to learn something you may not be aware of before now.


I/we have not tried the method in the video above, but I ran across it a few weeks back & thought it was interesting.
It is not how I/we have done our gutting(field dressing) or butchering in the past, but it seems to be a good method for those who want to do it the way that is shown. There is not field dressing involved in the video, just quartering down the deer.

I will look around later & see if I can find you some videos that I think are good ones & share them here if/when I find any I think is decent. I have shot gutted & butchered my own deer since I was young, as well as helped others learn how to do it ( including my own sons), so I think I would be abe to distinguish between good videos & crappy ones for ya.

I am sure others will chime in to help you as well when they see this topic. Not necessarily videos, but perhaps some want to try to type out what they do. I just don't think I could do that well enough to help out. I prefer to "show" folks stuff like that rather than try to type it out.

Anyway, G'Luck!

[brewer12345]

Hank Shaw is great. A wonderful resource.

Field dressing is pretty simple. Cut the belly open without puncturing the guts. I split the breast bone so I can cut the windpipe and pull out the lungs and heart with the rest of the guts. I split the pelvis so I can remove the poop shoot. Pull all the guts from the windpipe to the poop shoot out, retrieve what organs you might want to eat (heart, liver, kidneys), and you are done.

Skinning is easiest if you have a gambrel. Hang it from a tree or similar head down and peel the skin from hind legs to the head.

Butchering is pretty easy too. I cut the front quarters and neck up for stew meat (chunks) and burger (smaller pieces), leaving the shanks whole for braising or osso Bucco. The torso I pull the tenderloins and the backstrap for steaks, and everything else is stew or burger. The hindquarters I dissect and either leave as roasts or cut into steaks, leaving the shanks for braising or osso Bucco. The best illustration of how to butcher the hind quarters is this: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...5&&FORM=VRDGAR

This isn't real hard to do. You did it once and it becomes easier with practice.

[JBinMN]

Here is one I found for ya:



I watched this one sometime ago & when I went looking for the first video I found that I had sent it to my oldest son a while back & forgot about it until right now. Anyway, I thought it was pretty well done.

[JBinMN]

Hank Shaw is great. A wonderful resource.

Field dressing is pretty simple. Cut the belly open without puncturing the guts. I split the breast bone so I can cut the windpipe and pull out the lungs and heart with the rest of the guts. I split the pelvis so I can remove the poop shoot. Pull all the guts from the windpipe to the poop shoot out, retrieve what organs you might want to eat (heart, liver, kidneys), and you are done.

Skinning is easiest if you have a gambrel. Hang it from a tree or similar head down and peel the skin from hind legs to the head.

Butchering is pretty easy too. I cut the front quarters and neck up for stew meat (chunks) and burger (smaller pieces), leaving the shanks whole for braising or osso Bucco. The torso I pull the tenderloins and the backstrap for steaks, and everything else is stew or burger. The hindquarters I dissect and either leave as roasts or cut into steaks, leaving the shanks for braising or osso Bucco. The best illustration of how to butcher the hind quarters is this: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...5&&FORM=VRDGAR

This isn't real hard to do. You did it once and it becomes easier with practice.

The bolded is how I do it & it is a very concise way to describe it. Much better than I would have typed up I think.


The description of the butchering is what I usually do as well. Also typed up better than I could do it.


One tip that might help with skinning is that I use a couple of golf balls to wrap in the skin & pull down on them to strip off the hide(skin). It seems to help me keep a good grip. I have used small stones about the size of golf balls before I thought about using the golf balls.
It is also easier if you do it as soon as ya can while it is warm because as time goes by it will get a bit harder to skin it. ( The guy in the video I posted first post, cuts a slit in the hide, I have not done it that way, but it seemed to work well for him in the video.)

Once again , G'Luck!

[Winger Ed.]

When I shot my first one, I didn't know what to do next, so I took it to my Uncle who had run a working ranch all his life.

Here's how he walked me through cleaning one, after telling me, "I could do it faster, but you wouldn't learn as much":

The way my Uncle told me how to do it was to hang the deer back legs up.
Make a cut only in the skin coming down and hold your hand inside to keep from cutting the innards.
Go all the way down towards the neck.

Everything will drop out--- except for where it is still attached up at the far end of the large intestine, at the base of the tail.

When I asked, "OK, now what".

He told me, "Lift the tail, stick your finger in there and cut around it. Even you're smart enough not to cut your own finger".

I don't know how long he'd been waiting to pull that on one of us nephews.

[slownsteady22]

Here is one I found for ya:



I watched this one sometime ago & when I went looking for the first video I found that I had sent it to my oldest son a while back & forgot about it until right now. Anyway, I thought it was pretty well done.

I second this video for butchering, and here is one for field dressing.

https://youtu.be/3sChcEu862s


Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[WebMonkey]

I use the 4 wheeler method for skinning.
I use the tractor winch though.

Like mentioned above, a golf ball or similar under the skin gives something to grab.

Even if I have to trim as I go, the pulling from the winch makes a one man job easier.

Boning out, the above referenced videos are better than I could do.

[waksupi]

When I was still tanning hides, I was skinning around 45-50 each year. I would skin from the neck down. Faster than tail up, and the hides came out with so little flesh or connective tissue left on there wasn't much to remove on the fleshing beam. Skinning form the tail down is a holdover from hog and beef slaughtering.

[Driver33]

I prefer to skin from the head down. It works easier for me .

[ole_270]

I`ve come to prefer the gutless method. Skin in sections and quarter where it lays or wherever you prefer if you don't want to do it in the hunting area. Pack the quarters out and put them in a cooler. I usually run water over it and drain off a couple times to wash the meat off and help cool it down. Then cover in ice till you get ready to cut it up and wrap for the freezer

[Jeff Michel]

I'd find a local meat cutter, offer to pay him and have him show you the best way to go about it. What I do to drop the bung when field dressing, I have a short piece of chain (for hanging florescent lights) with a s hook on one end, clip the chain on your belt, hook the anus and lean back applying tension to the s hook . It frees up both hands to cut the rectum free, generally, your on your knees with the legs of the deer wrapped around your head and between fighting legs, trying to hold on to a rectum and trying to cut it out cleanly. Well, I have found having both hands free makes field dressing a pass time rather than a chore. Good luck.

[Bazoo]

I appreciate the suggestions and advice. Thanks for the good ball/stone idea for pulling hide. I haven't looked through all the links yet.

The one I did before I gutted it on the ground and finished by cutting the intestines right at the inside of the anus to separate it. I have a book on the subject, game care and cookery by Sam Fadala. It helped a lot but the pictures weren't that great. I hung the carcass by the neck to skin it and remove the legs.

One of the things id like to do differently is save the hide. Those folks in AK use dried caribou hides for floors in tents and I'm thinking a deer hide would do similar. So I want to dry the hide and keep the hair on. I gather all I have to do is flesh it, rinse the blood out, tack it to a board and let it dry?

[richhodg66]

Pretty much what Brewer said, except I cut the back straps into steakls and cube them. Two years ago, I started breaking down the hind quarters into roasts and wrapping and freezing it that way. Meat lasts longer when it's frozen in big pieces and I can always cut it up into stew meat or burger which we go through the most. This video is how I learned to do this;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w63Q1eEWPG4

[trails4u]

Offer your friend a good bottle of bourbon and a decent dinner if he'll do it for you.

[Hogdaddy]

Legs up. no gut is the way I done dozens of deer ; )
H/D

[rking22]

Considering many of these threads are read and serve for guidance to many beyond those who post on it, I have a question. What is the advantage to not gutting the deer? I want my meat to cool as quickly as possible and taking the 5 minutes to field dress reduces a lot of the mass that has to cool as well as providing more surface area to radiate heat. Can also throw an ice bag in the cavity. I did try it once, it was 20deg that afternoon so I thought it was a good time to give it a try. Seemed much more awkward working around the closed cavity and I finally just went on and gutted her before finishing. I don’t drag anymore, but I sure ain’t dragging guts on the rare occasion I can’t get the tractor to the deer. So, some who like the “non field dress” method, what are the advantages I am missing.

[Winger Ed.]

r. So, some who like the “non field dress” method, what are the advantages I am missing.

A lot of it is what you're used to and what works for you.

If you're going to quarter it right away, it's handy, and maybe faster without getting yourself all messy.

My disagreement with it is you'll leave behing the true tenderloin inside the cavity, at the top near the rear.
They're not big, but are perhaps the biggest delicacy on the whole critter.

[nelsonted1]

We hunt in a pack driving deer in the late Minnesota season during Thanksgiving week. We usually were pretty cold which was a blessing keeping the meat fresh. Most everyone were best buds for decades. One was a gorgeous babe who was so intensely in love with fishing and hunting we were, and are, in awe of her.... I watched a couple of them back away and waste so much time gutting that I took over everyone's gutting....I got to the point I could do in less than ten minutes. Cut the throat by the chest. Slit from rear and to rib cage. Cut carefully around the anus and plumbing and pull it through toward the belly. Reach up the inside of chest cavity. Grab esophagus and yank it down. Flip the deer over shaking it hard and if really lucky everything falls out. Then, peel off the gloves throwing them inside the cavity and done with no blood or mess on cuffs. Males are a little more difficult since the plumbing has to come up through a broken pelvis. I just cut off the tubing and pulled it towared the innards. Do not tear the bladder open or let urine on the meat if you can help it. Then, we held the cavity open with sticks to dry. Finally we tied the front legs and head together extending forward and back legs backward. If things work well the job can be so fast and clean it looks like witchcraft.... We took the hide off from head down. Cutting hide as close to the ears as possible first and chop off the legs at knees with an axe so we kept the hair off the carcass as much as possible. The hard part was the urine tubing on males and the hair off the carcass. I, we, hate hair on the carcass. By far the biggest deal of all of it for us.
Ted