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Very, very dark meat

I took a doe yesterday, well placed shot, totally bled out. Something seemed odd with her but it what when I got her home and skinned that things got weird. No body fat at all even her back bone was sticking out. Checked her teeth and the front were worn down to the gun line, back teeth were not much better. She seemed healthy and moved/behaved normally before the shot. The meat was a very dark red, like nothing I've ever seen before. With no acorns this year and snow coming early I bet she was already loosing weight. Having some of her meat tonight, hope it is all right. Anyone else ever see very dark red meat from their deer?

Sounds like a very old deer. As long as the meat does not smell bad it should be good. Probably a little tough!

^^^^^ This.

The meat smells fine, I can handle the tough part. No way she was going to make it though the winter

My dad killed a really old doe about 20 yrs ago. We had named her Bertha and left her alone for many years as she always had triplets. When she finally went dry and quit having fawns my dad shot her. Her meat was so dark it was almost purple. Worst eating deer we've ever had. We ate it, but it was pretty nasty.

the tenderloins tasted okay but I would not use tender to describe them, lol

I killed an 8yo buck that had the same deep dark red meat. We ground most of it up into burger assuming it would be tough and gamey. Big mistake. The few steaks we kept were some of the best venison I've ever had. You never know.

Old deer I killed a buck we watched for 7 years with a broken ear and the meat was purple when skinned off I’d rather chew on my boots

Best deer I ever ate was a fawn just a few spots still showing. Toughest was Alaska moose.(there is a reason they make us non residents shoot the big bulls). I think a safe rule of thumb is young = tender, old =tough, realising there are always exceptions. Had a friend shoot a sleeping calf elk in the head with a rifle; said it wasn’t hardly edible.

25% of the folks here are willing to put balls in their mouth, consider the audience.

Depends if they are still in the sack or not....those are most likely our west coast members....lol

Gotta disagree with ya cubdrvr. The bull I killed in Alaska was definitely an older bull, and it was some of the best eating meat I’ve ever had.

Age has little to do with how well meat tastes or even how tender it is. A lot has to do with how the animal died. Spine shot thrashing around having to walk up and shoot it again means stressful death, means tougher meat, double lung, not knowing it has been shot, tender meat. Also how well you take care if the meat and how quickly you get it cool helps a lot. Shawn

Meat darkness often has to do with mitochondria activity. As in flight muscle with ducks vs pheasants. Sustained and often-used muscle meat such as in duck, geese, turkey/pheasant leg muscle (dark meat) or tuna cruising/swimming muscles, tends to be darker, due to the oxygen binding capacity of the mitochondria during sustained activity, like turkeys walking or geese flying. Contrast that with pheasants or turkeys breast meat that is light in color, and used only during burst of use when flushed or perching to roost, or in tuna, burst swimming when feeding (solid white tuna meat). I don't know if this has anything to do with the darkness of your deer meat, but it could be that this deer was very active and trying to feed constantly and sustain body energy to make it through the winter in its old age. Or maybe running alot to escape hunters, bucks, or predators, and therefore lost its body fat, and overworked its muscles causing the mitochondrial activity to make it darker. Who knows, just a scientific theory I thought possible.

older deer will be like that. I always can them.

Yep Troy, that’s why I qualified and said there are always exceptions;-)

I shot a muley doe this year like that, but I've noticed mulies seem to have darker meat overall. She has tasted good so far.

TrapperKayak, that seems like a very plausible theory.

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