The Zombie Survival Food Bible: DEER DIARY- First time deer cleaning experience

I thought I would share with you my first ever deer cleaning experience, As some of you will already know I eat road kill every week and the roe deer has to be the jack pot as far as road kill is concerned, It was hit by a car and still warm to touch so it came straight home.

Over the years I have watched masses of videos on deer cleaning, I would go as far as saying I am obsessed, I watched videos from red necks using their trucks to skin the animals (which I personally would not do as it shows so little respect for the animal) to talented chefs like Mark Gilchrist expertly butchering a deer and teaching about the cuts of meat.

It has to be one of the best free experiences of my life, I'm pleased to say that watching the videos paid off as I skinned and butchered the deer from memory with help from my amazing Dad who encourages me in all my random activities and the camera skills of my friend Emma. This wasn't a rush job, from field to freezer it took over 3 hours, I could definitely speed the the process up next time but for a first time it was as much about learning and finding my feet and what worked best for me with the tools I had. (I should also say a special thank you to my mum, who was not happy with us doing this on the garden but still made us cups of tea and had a little look)

Please excuse me as I am much more comfortable referring to the deer carcass as Bambi, I hope this does not cause offence.

At first we tried to hang the carcass from a tree using nails and bailing twine, as i had saw similar in John Lofty Wiseman - SAS Survival Guide. This failed miserably, Dad then pointed out we have two industrial hooks on the stable side for horse training.
So some string, 3 people lifting and few minutes later we had bambi in a great starting position.

I started out by trying to cut the throat to bleed the animal but it had been a little to late for this by the time we got home. My knives let me down at this stage too- time to invest in some ramboesk fix blade hunting knives!

So I moved on to splitting the carcase, taking a good look at the organs and inspecting the site of impact.
I was really pleased to find the bladder full, a healthy liver, no burst intestines and everything smelt fine.

All the edible organs were put to one side for us and all the offal etc went to one side to use in traps.

After a good inspection it was time to start removing the skin, This took a lot longer than planned, it was so different from any other animal I have cleaned which once again lead me to think not only do I need some new knives but I need to sharpen my existing knives.

Wearing marigolds may look very girly but I promise you its worth looking like a girl. I've skinned and gutted to many animals bare hands and that smell lingers on your skin for ages!!

At this stage I wanted to clean up around the anus and just make sure Bambi was clean. For those of you who clean animals you will know the importance of poking your finger through the anus to remove any droppings

Skinning was slow and steady, This image shows the damage to the chest cavity caused by the car, You may have notice from the first set on photos I split the stomach but not the chest, I wanted to take a look at the lungs and chest separately, so they got opened up over another bag. Once again everything looked and smelt fine.

By this stage the baling twine had snapped on one side from the weight, I had given up trying to stay clean, and being delicate, I ended up sitting in blood and decided it was time to pull!!!

which resulted in the best ever father daughter bonding photo ever ever ever!! You can't see the smile on my face but you can see my dad is just about to start laughing as Emma the camera lady shouted pulllll :)

Finally the fur off in one piece, This got soaked in a bucket of water, nailed to a board and salted and left in the stables.
I am a firm believer in nothing should go to waste! The skull went into a bucket and out to one side ready to be made into a decoration.

So lots of Time, Tea, Team-Work, Chopping and learning later we had a full bambi cleaned and in the freezer!

I'm so grateful to my dad for giving me this opportunity, joining in in my excitement and I'm so proud because I witnessed him cooking for the first time ever as we sliced a nice fillet for each of us.

I would also like to say a special thank you to Emma for being mad enough to not only come and watch, but to film and to eat with us.

Not forgetting an extra special thank you to my mum who doesn't know how she made such a tom boy for a daughter but loves me anyway and still allows me to visit every day.