next closest butcher is about an hour away, and I can't swing that right now. Its 42 degrees out right now, so i hung her off the neighbor's swingset (they're not here, and they're ok with it) for the night. Starting tonight around 2 am its supposed to be pouring rain and winds to 30 MPH, lasting straight through tomorrow. i hung her by the head, and threaded the rope through a contractor bag that comes down past the ribs to try to provide some protection, although the hide is on so i'm not too worried.
high for tomorrow (saturday) is 55 degrees.
In a perfect world, i'd be able to wait until sunday before bringing her to the butcher that is close to my house, rather than the butcher that is close to my parent's house.
So question - will she be ok hanging out there tomorrow all day if the high is 55 with wind?
or should i just suck it up and head home tomorrow, and bring her to the butcher rather than waiting the extra day (and hunting sunday morning)?
thanks
The contractor's bag suppose to "provide some protection" from what? I'm missing something here. Please help me understand. Tks
if 55 is too warm, i'll just bring her to the butcher first thing in the morning.
so question - is 55 too warm? i know you mountain hunters leave an elk in the trees for a couple days sometimes... what is the temp cut off?
thanks
And yes, I've processed many myself, but that was then, and this is now. Don't want to fart with that myself anymore, and besides that, I have no grinder and I can't make summer sausage. :-)
I can typically take a whitetail from hanging to in the freezer, boned, muscle groups broken down, trimmed, de-silver skinned, vacuum wrapped and labeled, in less than 2 hours. My 19 y.o. son now helps and is getting pretty good at it!
Perhaps not for everyone, but there is fulfillment for me as a hunter to stay in the process from kill to freezer to table. Even on my western trips, I butcher my elk, Mulies....I even processed my Yukon Moose. What a cool place to butcher an animal! That took more than 2 hours......lol. Mr. Jameson was my assistant.....
We live in a great time to learn how to process your own animals! You could learn to perform an appendectomy on yourself these days....YouTube is where its at!
YES
And later, it provides you with an additional smile when you pull a package from the freezer for a meal.
I was in a similar situation last year. My processor quit accepting deer until he made space. I love aging my meat anyway. So I got several large bags of ice and packed them tighty inside the deer. Wrapped in in a tarp to keep the cold in. Temps were about the same as you are dealing with. I had to wait for a week. I checked the ice a few times only to find the entire deer very cold and the ice was doing VERY well. In fact the carcass and tarp did such a good job it didn’t melt much at all. Meat ended up being some of the best I’ve had. Good luck.
What you should have done for a temporary fix until you could get to butcher - was filled her cavity with frozen 1/2 gallon or frozen gallon milk jugs or bags of ice. Then if your keeping the hide on, put the contractors bag around it, with hole in bottom to let water out, and again pack with bags of ice or 1/2 or gallon frozen jugs on the outside as well. The bag would have kept the jugs in place and low temps in place.
They actually sell a type of insulated water proof quilt/liner to do this vary thing.
You should put a loose tarp over her. Not for the rain but for the sun which will heat her up even when cloudy. Buy one of the cheap silver sided ones and loose hang over the carcass.
She'll be just fine, as soon as she "skins over". Meat will be cool to the touch in those temps.
1) that they will be accepting deer for the season 2) after hours cooler access to put/hang the deer myself.
My back up plan is to process it myself.
My grandpa would hang his deer for weeks in Texas where the average temps would be in the 40’s or even 50. He would hang them in the hand dug well. I remember pulling a deer up and then trimming the mold off before we would butcher. His deer meat was always amazingly good.
We end up killing a lot of deer at my family’s ranch and will break them down into quarters and put in a chest freezer then thaw out later to cut.
I’m a big fan of breaking down a deer or elk in the woods and leaving the majority of the stuff we don’t eat in the field where it can do some good for the critters that use those parts of the animal. Otherwise it is a pain to deal with and ends up getting wasted in a landfill somewhere.
But one thing I don't think was mentioned(unless I missed something) is how well did you take care of field dressing? IF you gut shot the deer or were sloppy in field dressing and got urine, feces or stomach contents on the meat you probably want to keep it as cold as you can(after washing out the inside cavity as best you can) to inhibit bacterial growth. IF you did a good, clean job field dressing and are confident there will be no bacterial contamination, then I would do as Mule Power and others have stated- fill the cavity with ice.
I did this years ago with a deer I shot early season in mid 60's weather. Was 90 min from home and had to leave in the truck all day while hunting and did not get back home to skin and quarter til after 11pm.(15 hrs after I shot it) Fortunately it was overcast all day, so sun was not an issue. Got ice in it by 11am. When I got to skinning it 12 hrs later, my hands were freezing from the cold temp of the meat.(had to stop skinning many times and warm my hands up!) That deer hide does an amazing job of insulating that meat. Not only from the outside in, but once you get the inside cool, it (hide)insulates it and holds IN the cold! I always heard to fill the cavity with ice, but to be honest I was a little skeptical until I tried it. After that, I was a believer! ;-) I have no doubt you could keep a deer cold that way for many days.