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Post by catmandan on Apr 11, 2008 11:29:58 GMT -5
I killed a buck the last weekend of muzzleloader this year that had been wounded in the front shoulder sometime before. It acted normal while it was standing. While dressing and dragging it, yellow pus oozed out of the old wound. I butchered it myself. The meat all smelled normal (I avoided the shoulder) but there was very little body fat. Is this deer safe to eat?
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Post by Sasquatch on Apr 11, 2008 15:37:19 GMT -5
IMO, yes. You did right in bypassing the wounded area, since puss-ridden meat is obviously contaminated. You would of course need to watch transferring bacteria by making sure that no knife or hand that touched contaminated meat touched the good stuff without being cleaned with a bleach/water solution. Meat isolated from the infection should be fine. I think people go whacko over this stuff. Bullet fragments in a deer someplace making the whole deer deadly. An infected wound making the whole deer bad. Half a pizza being left on the nightstand not being good for breakfast.....  |
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Post by ripleyshooter on Apr 11, 2008 22:19:35 GMT -5
I asked a guy I know that has been a butcher all his life the exact question several years ago. At one time he was also a licensed meat inspector. He told me a deer with a small wound with a little infection would be okay if you cut away the infected meat, preferably the entire quarter. I believe a small wound the way he described it would be a cut or abrasion that the deer might suffer running out in the wild maybe jumping a fence and getting snagged or something similar. He thought that anything much worse than that he wouldn't eat. The way he described it once a deer gets that green puss under the hide even in a small area that it is possible that the infection has spread through the bloodstream and it is unsafe to eat. I have shot deer in the past that I found upon field dressing had previously been shot and had the yelowish green colored puss under the hide and in the wound like you are describing and I opted not to eat the deer. I am no expert but that is my two cents worth.
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Post by duff on Apr 12, 2008 10:20:48 GMT -5
Situation dependant for sure. I've been lucky on deer to not come accross anthing that bad but I was skinning a muskrat and had one with the old wound and puss under the hide and I had to leave the shed for some fresh air! No way I would be able to eat that if I was cleaning one up for that purpose!
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Post by indianahick on Apr 12, 2008 13:27:47 GMT -5
The only previously wounded deer that I can recall killing had been shot in one hamstring (rear) during opening weekend. Since I did not hunt opening weekend until Sunday afternoon I do not have any idea when it was actually shot but it was not infected yet. But I am sure that the processor cut all of that out and threw it away. If I found running infection oozing out I would have to eat a tag and believe that I had done the animal a favor by putting it out of its misery.
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