...... and bit into a piece of lead birdshot.
The meat was from (IIRC) the front shoulder of the mature buck I got last fall, and was of the sliced, whole muscle variety (soy sauce and sriracha flavored!).....
It's pretty small, I'd guess around 7 1/2 shot size .... deformed on one side and nicked by my tooth on another.... is lead. It had kind of been encased in scar tissue, so it had been there awhile.
I've found some different things while butchering deer before, such as healed broadhead wounds, healed impact injuries (possibly from deer/automobile interactions) including healed broken bones .... and of course bullet fragments, including the yellow plastic tips from my brother's Nosler Ballistic Tip bullets.... this same deer had what we are guessing was a pretty fresh puncture wound from an antler, even .... but I've never found birdshot in a deer before.
His hide was pretty thick, and had a good layer of fat under it (there is generally so much more corn than storage where I hunt that it is usually just piled on the ground at the local elevators until they can get it shipped) to penetrate down into the shoulder muscle, he had to be fairly close to the shotgun to get that kind of penetration with that small of shot ..... just about had to be intentional, don't you think?
The meat was from (IIRC) the front shoulder of the mature buck I got last fall, and was of the sliced, whole muscle variety (soy sauce and sriracha flavored!).....
It's pretty small, I'd guess around 7 1/2 shot size .... deformed on one side and nicked by my tooth on another.... is lead. It had kind of been encased in scar tissue, so it had been there awhile.
I've found some different things while butchering deer before, such as healed broadhead wounds, healed impact injuries (possibly from deer/automobile interactions) including healed broken bones .... and of course bullet fragments, including the yellow plastic tips from my brother's Nosler Ballistic Tip bullets.... this same deer had what we are guessing was a pretty fresh puncture wound from an antler, even .... but I've never found birdshot in a deer before.
His hide was pretty thick, and had a good layer of fat under it (there is generally so much more corn than storage where I hunt that it is usually just piled on the ground at the local elevators until they can get it shipped) to penetrate down into the shoulder muscle, he had to be fairly close to the shotgun to get that kind of penetration with that small of shot ..... just about had to be intentional, don't you think?