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Hanging deer with hide on.

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I too believe in hanging an animal for a few days prior to cutting, as long as conditions allow for it. Conditions is a broad term ranging from temperature to appropriate ability and space. But I refuse to hang with hide on, due to my own reasons.
Walk
 
I shot my buck November 2nd this year it was an instant kill. The animal was hit in the spine just back of the front legs. I field dressed my buck then hung it in my garage skinned that animal straight away then started to debone the critter the next morning.
Because it was an instant kill, we didn’t need to hang it any length of time to deal with Adrenalin. The whole purpose of hanging and aging is to let bacteria soften the meat. We’ve had steaks already that were tender and sweet from this buck. A spinal shot is definitely the best shot you can make as it instantly paralyzed the deer preventing messages of panic tracing the adrenal glands. 200 meters.
I’ve spine shot two deer and both tried crawling away dragging their back half. I had to use a finishing shot. A couple of friends have had the same results with spine shot deer. Your results may vary
 
I've always heard of hanging deer without skinning were it's cold for a day or so. Down south you just can't do that, it can be 20 today and 70 tomorrow. I gut where the deer falls, then skin and quarter back at camp. I do keep the meat in ice chest for 3-4 days, draining and putting on fresh ice. Then I cut, grind, vacuum seal, and freeze. But it's getting to be too much like work now.
TDM, yer making a habit of posting my words before I do. 😉 Yeppers, right on spot with that.
 
When any of us (hunting party) took a deer , of course it was gutted etc immediately, then we would start the drag back to the vehicles, usually a mile or two. We would have to cross a few decent streams. We would let the deer lay in the stream for a while, and the ice cold water did a great job of cleaning it out. The back to base camp and into town to a local "processor" . I never skinned a deer and never wanted too. The processing cost was not that bad then, 30-40 bucks and if the guy could keep the hide, it reduced the price. I was fine with it. It was just part of the cost to hunt. IMHO
 
As soon as the field dressed deer is home (usually less than two hours after the shot) hung skinned and split down the back bone and washed out with cold water, before my dad passed and if it was cold enough we would hang the deer in the smoke house for no longer than two days before processing (we done all our own butchering and processing ) Now I have a local butcher who will skin, split down the back bone wash out wih cold water and hang in his meat locker for me. I go pick up the deer bring it home and process it. The only thing I dont have now is a place to hang and cool out the deer, but been looking at the coola buck portable lockers. Make all my own bolonga, jerkey and pastrami. The only product I have made off site is snack sticks but working on a recipe for those also.
 
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