Need some help with pheasants...

Z

Zudd

New member
So I got some pheasants from a friend, thought it would be great to have them for christmas dinner instead of turkey. Problem is, they have been sitting, frozen in his garage...whole for a week. Skin, feathers, guts and all, he just set them down and let them freeze. I've always cleaned them immediately when I've shot them, so I've never worried about it.

What would your opinions be on the safety of eating them? I'm leaning toward no, but damn if I don't want some pheasant. I haven't gotten out to hunt this year, and I *really* want to eat them...but don't want food poisoning either.

What think ye fellow hunters?
 
Thats a little spooky...
I wouldn't but I am kind of strange about such things. It's the guts that would bother me and the whole defrosting process.
GAR
 
I would not even worry about them being safe.

In the seafood business there are a lot of species of fish that are marketed "in the round", which means guts in.

The only thing to be concerned with is what we refer to as T&T, time at temeprature, sometimes also expressed as time and temperature.

In the instance at hand the birds were, if I understand the post, frozen withing a few hours of being killed and they have been frozen sense.

Let them thaw and cook 'em.......................
 
Yep, they were shot, brought back and left to freeze pretty much immediately. My friend lives on a farm and basically shot them in his back yard and collected them and let them freeze.
 
You will be eating a science experiment unless you keep the birds under about 40 F while they are defrosting ..... bacteria multiply pretty fast above that.

Time and Temp: The bacteria had time to grow and multiply in the time it took for the innards to freeze..... how long is too long? IDK, but as a rule, I try to gut and chill game as soon as possible. It is your alimentary canal: bet a case of the trots or worse (severe food poisoning) if you want to.

The sickest I have ever been was from fried chicken left in a lunch box that did not stay cold enough .....
 
Thaw them just enough to soften the meat, then breast them out.
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That would be my call and on one occasion, a lady friend phone me as to what she should do with two pheasants that a relative had left her. Seems she asked him for a couple of birds that perhaps they had left over. I went over and cleaned them the day after and they were fine. So, I don't feel you would have a problem. Your buddy didn't do you a favor ..... :(

That being said, When in doubt, throw them out. No food is worth getting sick over or worring about it. That is perhaps, chocolate. ...... :D

Might add a word to other hunters that if you get such requests, please clean them. We share our game with some landowners and when delivered, it's butchered and pakaged frozen.


Be Safe !!!
 
My friend does this sort of thing...he's one of those that just kills stuff to kill it, but yet drags it back home. He has a gutted deer frozen, hanging from the rafters in his garage too...I want to smack him. To each his own I guess...I was always taught if you shoot it...you eat it.
 
pheasants

hope this is not totally off topic. if u do cook these birds i would smoke them. the best bird i have ever eaten in my life was smoked pheasant bar none.
 
I just heard a weird one. A guy I duck hunt with knows a guy that hangs his ducks for up to a 2 weeks in an old fridge. He doesn't do anything with them other than get them down in temp after the hunt. Hangs them from the neck. I don't know if I would do it but my buddy claims the guy does it all the time and it is fine. I forget what temp he gets them down to, believe it was under 32 degrees though.
 
Its hard to say since I don't know exactly when they were left to freeze. I will say however that cooking them will kill off alot of the nasty stuff. I'm a lot more concerned about cooked stuff sitting around.
 
A guy I duck hunt with knows a guy that hangs his ducks for up to a 2 weeks in an old fridge.
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Not an uncommon thing to do with pheasants, esp in Scotland. Once while on a det there the local restaurant owner took a couple of us into the basement to show us the pheasants.

They were hung on a small hook by the beak. Owner said that if he tugged on them and the head came off they were ready to eat. I don't know if ours were like that, but I assume they were, and they were delicious.

I have always wanted to hang my pheasants here but the wife has an aversion to dead birds hanging from the rafters in the garage. :eek:

In this case, because you don't know the real history of these birds, I would second the opinion to thaw slightly and breast them.

bob

http://honest-food.net/2008/11/27/on-hanging-pheasants/
 
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