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Most Interesting Question of the Day

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“What would you like us to do with the gut pile?”

Context: Chris and Nick have taken us up on our offer to come out and cull the local deer population.

I was also asked, “Is it ok that we use that pulley, cable, gambrel system in your side yard?”

Silly me. I thought it was called a ‘deer cleaning thingy’.

9 Responses

    1. At the end of the shortcut to the hidden pasture. Answer inspired by coyotes– close enough for them to find but not *that* close to the house.

  3. My opinion of coyotes (I had no idea they were present in Missouri, by the way!) leads me to agree with your placement entirely – as long as there was also a hunter’s station nearby so that they could be shot as they arrived – or left.

    Of course, that would mean a bigger mess to clean up…

    I take it that one doesn’t salvage the “casings” material for deer sausage? How about the organs? if not people food, wouldn’t your dogs have gone slightly nuts for them? Or _are_ they people food? if not why not? (though I understand that lots of people don’t eat heart, liver and kidneys even from our usual domestic critters) Still…I don’t know – are parasites a problem in deer?

    1. I have no idea if there are coyotes in Missouri– but there sure are in Mississippi!

      I did read that some folks do use the gut pile to attract coyotes. Not sure if they do it here, though. The coyotes only come out at night. I’m betting the buzzards pick the pile clean before the coyotes get to it.

      I do not know much about deer processing or the consumption of deer organs. I do know that there’s a viral neurological disease– “wasting”– that can be pretty devastating for the human who eats venison from a diseased animal. I also know next to nothing about parasites in deer.

      One thing I do know is that I’m not feeding raw deer meat to the dogs. Yuck.

      Good questions. I’m wondering about these things now, too!

  4. If you gottum in Mississippi, they for sure gottum in Missouri…!

    (sorry about that – mixed up my “Misses”!)

    “One thing I do know is that I’m not feeding raw deer meat to the dogs. Yuck.”

    Who said anything about feeding _raw_ meat to the dogs? You don’t make “dog soup”? (this and that, water added, then poured over dry food)

    I thought “wasting” was … “John’s disease”…. Have to look it up. Memory – which is frequently totally mistaken – tells me that it’s a disease found in sheep and goats – and deer are sort of related to goats. Kind of. At least, it wouldn’t surprise me to find they had the disease in common. I’d sure be worried about eating sheep/goat in an area where the problem was indigenous in the deer population.

    My daughter called to ask if we were interested in them bringing out some boar meat when they come to visit for Christmas. Seems her DH is going hunting on a friend’s ranch. Wild boars are open season game. I have no particular feelings about boar as a meat – looks like pigs to me! but I told her to tell him to _BE CAREFUL_! Pigs of any variety can be plain old mean and _DANGEROUS_!!

    And if she brings any, I intend to cook it to the recommended 170* – without question!

  5. The neighbor lady had a dog that got into some deer carcass or something a while ago (can’t quite remember details). By the time she realized he was starting to have trouble with his balance it was too late. He’d eaten wasted stuff. It was sad seeing him out in the yard declining little by little.

    Anyway– yeah. I suppose we could make deer broth for the dog food. At this point it seems like a lot of work.

    Wild boar? Hum. Let me know how that goes!

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