feeding deer

[Anonymous]

And how does a deer go from the lawn to the table? Do you skin them in your garage? Cut them up in the back? Smoke the meat? Take it to a butcher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And how does a deer go from the lawn to the table? Do you skin them in your garage? Cut them up in the back? Smoke the meat? Take it to a butcher?

A lot depends on the ambient temperatures when you make the kill. Early in the season (October) it's still too warm to properly age the meat outside after you've field dressed it (removed entrails and organs). After the kill, you leave the carcass on the ground for a couple hours so the ticks will climb off it (I have a designated spot for this in my backyard, a square of old carpet that is treated with permethrin, which kills the ticks within hours of crawling onto it). Then you hoist the deer up by the rear legs at the tarsals, and cut downwards from just below the anus to the top of the rib cage. You pull all the entrails out (our dogs love them) and hose out the empty body cavity to remove the remaining blood. I also cut the blood vessels in the neck to get the blood out of the neck and head, but many people don't do this because it stains the head. I don't mount deer, so I don't care. The goal is to get the carcass cooled down past the spoilage temperature as quickly as possible. Fresh venison (or beef, for that matter) is too tough to be considered good fare. It needs to age at cold temps for 1-2 weeks to allow the proteins and collagens in the muscle fibers to break down slightly. Also, venison is very lean already, and what little fat there is needs time to soften and disperse into the tissue around it. In the winter, you can just hang it outside wrapped in burlap and it will age perfectly. But in October it's still too warm for this, and it will spoil before it ages. I'm very, VERY fortunate to have a long time friend a few blocks away who owns a couple gas stations along the Pike up past the college. He's also big into venison, and he allows me to hang deer in the back of the drink cooler wall behind the racks of soda. After late November, it's usually cold enough to age them outside.

After it's aged, it's just a matter of butchering. They have the same cuts of meat that a lamb or goat has. You can take it to a processor (there's two in Poolesville) or do it yourself (we do our own). The backstraps and tenderloin are the choice parts, the rest is best when ground together with beef fat into burger or venison meatloaf. The beef fat provides fat that the venison is lacking, and gives it a very good mouthfeel. I also make sausage, and lots of venison jerky. Venison makes particularly good jerky because of the low fat content, it dries out beautifully.

Last year, of the eleven deer we killed in our yard, we donated the last 5 to food banks supplied by our church. You just wrap the cuts in freezer paper or vacuum seal it, and the food bank place keeps it frozen until its distributed out to the people who receive it.

Venison isn't a substitute for beef, they are each distinct in their own flavor. Venison is its own thing. We typically only enjoy it in the colder months, so it somewhat replaces steak for our winter "red meat" dinners. We get to appreciate it a couple times a week, and we've usually eaten all of it by April. No more until next fall. Makes you look forward to next fall.


Oh, lastly, yes, we do have licenses and we do tag our deer for DNR, and no, our neighbors have no idea. We have big lots here, and you can't really see from yard to yard anyway.

[Anonymous]

Wow.

[Anonymous]

This thread went from feeding deer to eating deer pretty quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread went from feeding deer to eating deer pretty quickly.

Circle of Life!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless you plan to take them out with cross bows, you will end up with a decimated yard and your neighbors yards will be eaten up as well. And then the deer will be so healthy they will have more fawns, and then they will run out in front of cars in your neighborhood.

So if you don't plan to kill the deer and eat them, don't feed them.

I want them to have more fawns! My property contains and borders on woods. They have no reason to go in the street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless you plan to take them out with cross bows, you will end up with a decimated yard and your neighbors yards will be eaten up as well. And then the deer will be so healthy they will have more fawns, and then they will run out in front of cars in your neighborhood.

So if you don't plan to kill the deer and eat them, don't feed them.

I want them to have more fawns! My property contains and borders on woods. They have no reason to go in the street.

So, you just think that they'll stay in your yard forever?!?! Because you "have woods"?

This is an illustration of the problem right here. People just don't understand deer. They think they're pets, rather than wild animals with their own agendas. And part of that agenda is going out and finding new areas to graze and browse. Which means crossing roads.


The sad reality is we have about 70-90% MORE deer than we should.

One square mile of "natural" deer habitat (mix of broadleaf forest and field/meadow) with no human presence (houses, buildings or roads) should support about 15-30 deer, depending on the type of vegetation. That's the carrying capacity of deer for that square mile.

There are many places in southern MoCo with 250+ deer per square mile. That's insane. It's a level NEVER encountered in nature. Ever. It just isn't. The forests can't sustain that kind grazing. Look at the woods in most county parks - you can usually see 50-100 yards through the trees. That shouldn't be possible with a healthy forest. The area of the forest floor between large canopy trees should be choked with undergrowth and young saplings. Instead, its sparse and empty. All growth below 6 feet has been eaten away, except for a few types of invasive plants that deer won't eat. There are now native shrubs, and no young trees. When existing the mature trees die, there won't be new younger trees replacing them. Gradually, the forest will disappear and turn into a field.

The hugely inflated numbers of deer in this area are from two factors, both caused by humans: lack of predation (animal predators and human hunters) and a overabundance of food sources in suburban backyards, along roadways, and other "edge" areas where new plant growth is most aggressive. Deer aren't deep-woods creatures. They live and eat along forest edges and margins. When you take a square mile of forest and divide it up into lots of small parcels and yards, and cross cross it with roads, you create a lot more edges and margins to that forest. That increases the available forage, and increases the number of deer.

Without an increase in predation to accomany this, eventually the lines on the graph representing population and available food will intersect. After that point, the population is in slow starvation, while destroying the habitat at the same time. We are at or past that point in most of the county right now.

There are just too many of them. Their numbers need to be about 1/5th of what they currently are.