Proper disposal of deer parts.

R

Rebeldon

New member
This might seem like a mountain out of a molehill, but we love to take time to hunt, and when it comes time to getting rid of our mess, we can find ourselves unprepared, or often take the quick and easy route. I've been guilty of this myself before. One evening, several years ago, I killed a buck just before sundown. It was dark by the time I loaded the deer into the back of a relative's station wagon. I was in a rush to dress the deer and then get rid of the parts. I put the head, organs, hide and the legs in a large bucket and drove off looking for a place to dispose of them. I was staying at a place I was unfamiliar with at the time and I didn't know where to go. It didn't occur to me to have a plan to dispose of the parts. I sure did have a plan to actually kill a deer, and dress a deer--but then what? Every public dumpster I came to had written in big letters: "NO DEER PARTS". Finally, after driving all over the place, we found a creek out in the boonies and dumped the parts into the creek, and then rinsed out the bucket. I felt pretty bad out that. I'm sure some little critter had himself a feast, but from that time on, I made sure to have a plan to properly dispose of the parts.

What makes me sick is the apparent lack of conscience on the part of some hunters regarding where and how they dispose of their deer parts. It turns non-hunters into anti-hunters. The worse case I've ever seen is I saw several deer dumped in a ditch off the side of a rural road with just the tendorloin cut out. :eek: And it smelled bad too. :barf: Not only is that lazy, but it's just plain wastefull. I felt bad about dumping a bucket of deer parts in a creek five miles away from the nearest turnoff. I couldn't live with myself for dumping almost a whole animal in a ditch along a major road--let alone several of them.

What are the best ways to dispose of deer parts? How do you do it?
 
Down here we gut immediatly after the kill. Go back 3 or 4 days later to the same spot and there is NOTHING left. The possums, coons, etc. have disposed of ALL of the insides. The head, hide, feet, etc., fit just fine in my big ole garbage can. Roll it to the road and viola, early the next morning its empty! Failing that there are numerous bayous, and canals, down here just teeming with big gators, crabs, gar, shoupic, crawfish, etc. to whom the deer parts are a FEAST. The water boils for a while when these parts are first discovered but soon after all is gone. I do agree that while pitching one on the roadside is not good, spending too much time and energy worrying about what to do with the parts is un-necessary.
 
Frankly, I gut on the spot and share with the scavengers. Here in SC we have some slobs who dump stuff in ditches, much better IMHO to leave the guts at the kill site. Skin, bones and head usually make good fertilizer for my rose bushes. (I bury them)

Giz
 
Dumping the guts at the kill site is ideal, because it is usually out of the way. A coyote, wolf or bobcat might run across the guts, or perhaps some stray dogs.

It's usually cold enough (it gets gets below freezing at night) that if you shot a deer in the late afternoon just before sundown, you really don't have to get rid of the parts until the next morning. So worrying about it is not good. Doing something about it in an ethical way that makes people not despise hunters is all I'm concerned about. Feeding the parts to the fish sound like a good idea.

One day I saw a friend's dog running around with a deer leg :barf: . He wasn't about to give that up. I wasn't about to try and take it from him neither. I like having all my fingers. Besides, it looked like it made him very happy. :)
 
Some years ago my wife and brother in law were hunting on our lease while I was at work offshore. It was late in the year, and we still had 2 or 3 doe tags to fill. Late on the Saturday after noon a big (and I do mean BIG) doe crossed their path, and went about 50 yards into the woods. POP! one 30-30 in the ear and it was over. They came back after dark with help to get her out.2 men and one woman could not move her so brother in law gutted her (he ahd not done so bafore because it was cold and she was head shot). Well they got her out ok (finally), damn that was some good sausage, but the wife lost one of her good Isotona dress gloves that night. One week later we went back even though they did not know exactly where this event took place :D. From their description I went ot the spot even though they said "this is not it", and started loking around. They said this can't be the place because there are no guts. About that time I asked brother in law "if this ain't the place why is your insulated LSU "beverage" glass lying right over there? He said "damn this must be the spot but where are the guts?" I showed him a few spots where some of the undigested browse was lying on the ground and told him what happened. You could see all the small animal tracks all over the place. Oh by the way we found the wife's missing glove 3 days later stuck in the seat of her brother's truck.;)
 
The only problem I can see with spilling the deer's guts on the ground right where you shot it is if you were planning on hunting there again the next day or so.

They sure are lighter to carry without all that extra weight.
 
In a previous life I worked for the USDA-APHIS-ADC folks and I've seen deer feeding around previously shot deer. They pay no attention what so ever..

Good chance for raccoons and coyotes too...:D

Giz
 
'Pends on where you are. If you usually hunt (as I do) way out in the boonies, you can do what others do, and leave the gun pile for the coyotes and possums.

I personally like burying biodegradable refuse whenever possible.
 
Um, I didn't realize people did anything with the viscera other than leave it right there it the woods where it landed. (Other than the heart and liver, of course.)

The worse case I've ever seen is I saw several deer dumped in a ditch off the side of a rural road with just the tendorloin cut out.
Click to expand...

That's indians.
 
That's indians.
Click to expand...

Oh, you got those around you too?

The 'indians' around here do that too. Amazes me though. They seem awfully white and overweight for indians. They're usually pretty environmentally unconscious and unappreciative of their game's lives, for indians, too.

The tribe around here in Va is called 4x4drivindoghuntinlazybastard. They have a fairly simple, decipherable language.
When speaking to them in their native tongue, I will usually ask something like this: "So..uhhh, how many deer you git this year?" In their native tongue they will reply something like, "I got me 26 tenderloins. Ida got me more, but friggin Molly had a bum leg. Slowed di resta di dogs."
TRANSLATION: "I had my dogs run down 13 deer and drive them within 50 yards of my truck so I could shoot them and not have to drag them far. I still didn't want to drag them, and I didn't want to get my $26000 4-wheel-drive dirty, so I just sliced out the tenderloins and let the rest of the carcus rot in the field. Molly, my lead dog, was hurt, but I ran her anyway. She usually gets me 20 deer, but she messed up the rest of the pack with her bum leg. I think I'll shoot her after hunting season."

RANT OFF.

Needless to say, I have no respect for the local deer dog-hunting population.
 
Rebeldon, I brought over part of my reply from another thread...

You are also right-on about holding every aspect of 'the hunt' to the same high standards. I strive to leave any location I frequent BETTER than how I found it. Not all, but a few areas I hunt I actually take it ALL with me when I leave- entrails, etc. The places I do leave those remains for consumption by the 'locals', I do so very judiciously.

Don't even get me started on the small segment of our sport that call themselves 'Hunters'- giving the rest of us a bad name when all they are really just worthless poachers!

-Harvester
 
I leave the viscera/gut pile at the site of the kill with no remorse. The 4-legged sanitation crew works nights and weekends and all is cleaned up pronto. After I process my deer for the freezer I bury the head/hide and toss the bones/scraps on my land, either out in the pasture or edge of timber. More work for the crew.
 
Pitching entrails, etc. in the waterways may work OK for down south (used to live in Louisiana & south Florida) - more critters there that will dispose of the stuff pretty quick.

Here in Colorado, there's mudbugs, etc., but just not enough of that type scavenger to make a dent. Even fish entrails aren't supposed to go back in the water. You can still see even the guts of one small trout 2-3 days later & not touched at all.

But, the crows, magpies, coons & coyotes, etc. will do a number on things on land.

Deer/elk get gutted on the spot, not buried & not put into the waters. Hard enough to move a gutted elk, let alone one that's still got another 150 lbs of guts in it.
 
Good point labgrade, I never thought of the fact that in colder waters there may not be the "critters" to take care of goodies that we have here.
I had about 50 pounds of shrimp heads one time and it would be 3 days before the garbage man passed, and it was August, so i wanted to sisopose of them right quick. I drove to the back of my place and pitched them in the Teche (that's my back property line). I went back up to the house, got a cold 6-pack of a certain "beverage" and a rod and reel and some of the peeled shrimp. Gave it about 15 minutes, and went back and filled up a 48 quart ice chest with nice channel cats in the 1 1/2 to 2 pound range. I quit when I figured I had all I wanted to skin. They were still going strong. The next morning all evidence was gone.
In the Gulf of Mexico if you happen to catch a bluefish out of a school under one of the offshore oil platforms, and you would by any chance want it, you better reel it in quick or cannibalism sets in. We don't keep them down here, we consider them trash fish so we better reel them in quick to release them, or the others will eat them before they are reeled in and another one is on the hook by hooking himself when he ate the head!
 
I have hunted a large hayfield between two wooded areas for years. I have killed and or seen killed a half dozen deer during the week long deer season, all killed in this same filed. The morning following, there has never been any remains from the field dressing. the coyotes and crows haev always cleaned up the mess overnight. As far as head, hide and bones left after home processing, I take them to a friends farm field and dump them out of sight of anybody. These two are cleaned up by the scavengers of nature. I would be very careful dumping any type of "trash" into public streams, that my friends is a crime and would be a publicity statement we hunters don't need! If you live in a city and don't have access to a farm field to dispose of teh left overs, contact a local butcher and see if they will dispose of the parts for you, they must have a resource for disposal of the by products of their processing.:)
 
"If you live in a city and don't have access to a farm field to dispose of teh left overs, contact a local butcher and see if they will dispose of the parts for you, they must have a resource for disposal of the by products of their processing."

Yeah, it's called sausage. Yuck.
 
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