ENGL 1101 20473 Class Blog: How To Field Dress A Deer

How to Field Dress a Deer

Steps:

Field dress within an hour
Lay on back with head up hill
Have a short no slip knife
Cut skin but not stomach muscle from neck to anus
Cut muscle of stomach, don’t cut organs
If nursing doe, remove mammary glands
If buck remove penis and testicles
Crack rib cage
Free the diaphragm
Remove esophagus
Once intestines are removed place in bucket or pail
Move to a safe dump site to avoid contamination
Wash hands and equipment and if necessary, soak equipment in bleach

Introduction:

I am an avid outdoors man and as such I love to hunt. I think that one of the most important things that you need to know as a hunter is how to field dress a deer. Above I have laid out the steps for field dressing. However, below I have included a longer a more thorough guide to field dressing a deer properly.

Field dressing: image 1

The first thing you will need to keep in mind is time. Field dressing should take place within one hour of the kill. Lay the deer on its back on a slight incline and, if possible with its head pointed up hill. A small creek or other water source will make clean up a bit easier. Remember to wear rubber gloves to protect your arms and hands from pathogens. You will need a short nonslip handled knife, this is important because longer knives can turn when they become slick with blood or intestinal material. If a knife does this you put yourself at risk for cutting yourself and introducing any diseases that the deer might contain into to your own bloodstream.

Cutting and removing organs: image 2

Start by making a small incision on the stomach just deep enough to puncture the skin without slicing the stomach muscle and work this cut from the neck to the anus. Making this long cut will help with the rest of the process because it will expose all organs when you need to remove them. Next make a cut on the muscle of the stomach. Be extra careful not to puncture an organ with your blade, depending on which organ you slice through, you could ruin the meat of your kill and have nothing to show for your efforts. If you nick the stomach with your knife the stomach acid and bacteria of the stomach will render your meat non-edible. Work this cut to the parameters of the previous cut. If you’ve shot a nursing doe, you’ll need to remove the mammary glands and if you’ve shot a buck you’ll need to remove the penis. Next work your way to the head separating the rib cages by using a prying motion with your blade. Again, be careful during this step to avoid cutting yourself. Once the chest cavity is open cut the diaphragm free. The diaphragm is a thin flat but tough muscle which separates the heart and lung area from the stomach area. Remove this on both sides of the chest. After this you will cut the esophagus out. Use one hand to grasp it firmly while the other uses the blade to cut it loose. With this chore done the organs should pull out in one continuous pull. You can use a hatchet or bone saw to open up the pelvis and remove any leftover parts, but this process can be saved for later or skipped altogether if you plan on quartering the deer immediately.

Disposal: image 3

Remember that you will need a bucket or trash can on hand to place removed parts into to avoid contamination. Contamination can include but isn’t limited to bacterial contamination. Contamination can also lead to the fact that leaving animal skin and organs can increase the predators in an area and ruin the ecosystem and environment that you hunt in. The increase in predators can lead to prey animals being driven out of an area and the hunting spot being deemed worthless for generations. There is also a chance that your kill had an infection that could be passed on to animals that consume the organs and left over bits from cleaning. You should always wash your hands and any tools or equipment used in this process in hot soapy water and if tools have small nicks, grooves, or even embossing it may be necessary to rinse them in a bleach solution. This makes sure that no cross contamination occurs between kills. Cross contamination can cause pathogens to be transferred from the last kill to the next and can cause sickness in humans and animals alike.

Conclusion:

By knowing how to properly field dress a deer, you can save yourself from the risk of food born illnesses. After you have followed all of the steps the deer needs to be put on ice and taken to the processor as quickly as possible. The steps that I have told you are how I field dress my deer and how I was taught to do so by my father. There are other ways but I have found this to be the easiest and the fastest for a properly field dressed deer.

Pictures:

Image 1