how to tell if a deer has spoiled???

canadian hunter312

canadian hunter312

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today we had to drive 2 hours on major highways to get to our jobsite (2 hours one way for 45 mins work:rolleyes:) and we saw 2 roadkill deer. so we stopped and picked up the first, a big bodied 6 pointer. a few kms down the road we picked up a little doe. neither of them smell funky and i havent gutted them yet as i came on the net to try and find some answers before potentially wasting my time gutting and hanging them.

the temps were a high of 0 today so far and yesterday was quite chilly as well.

what are some things to look for when checking an animal to see if it has spoiled?

the buck has a gash on one of his legs and the meat is slightly darker than that under the flesh. the doe looks to be in good condition except for some broken ribs. the eyes on both animals have shrunk a little bit.

if they are rotten, ill just drop them off in the bush for the critters to snack on;)
 
Eyes shrunk? Get rid of them. They've been dead a while.


But if you insist, first split the good back leg to the bone and take a sniff. Do the same to the back of the thickest part of the neck and the back where it goes over the gut sac. Any smell other than fresh meat is not what you want. Any "sourness" is a sign that the deer has been percolating in its own juice to long. Toss 'em.
 
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Get rid of them. The collision probably caused internal damage and the gut juices worked from the inside. The deer was warm inside for quite a while giving it a lot of time for contamination from intestinal bacteria. Use them as coyote bait. Or if you've got some hidden need to be a CSI pathologist dig right in.
 
Skin the deer and use it as coyote bait. Get some nice coyote pelts. Unless you were the one that hit it and picked it up 5 minutes after you hit it and gutted it right away, you're asking for trouble.
 
Do the balls have any signs of green colour? If so use it for coyote bait. I pick up road kills all the time, but mostly only if its been cold and the deer is still warm inside.
 
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we had nothing to lose so we picked them up. i was kinda iffy about it but figured what the hell.

upon closer inspection, the skin around their guts were light green. i gutted the buck anyways to check it out and his intestines were bloated, but not the stomach. i didnt even bother with checking the doe, just dumped them out in the bush.

i guess ill just wait until its a constant high of -5 degrees or lower. should be frozen before anything has a chance to spoil.

i saved the guts to use for yote bait this weekend;)

any ideas as to how long its been since they were hit? by the looks of it, they were both nailed the same day.
 
yes ust call trhe mnr thy will give u a permit to keep it .a lot of road kill deer are fine to eat éwith in reason open them up asap and wash them out with cold water then get the hide off you may not be able to use all the meat but the prime cuts are far away from the guts and can be saved most times .,
 
oh man. I have seen deer put down with a rifle after a collision, and I wouldn't think of eating one that fresh. Maybe I am paranoid, but given the work that goes into butchering one, I sure wouldn't want to do it to find out that it is nasty.
 
Or you could have a CSI moment and mesure the liver temp using the wifes turkey thermometer; the liver will cool at a rate of 1.5 degrees per hour until it reaches surrounding temperature. I guess you would have to look up the body temperature of deer somewhere first and then make your calculations.
 
"...picking up roadkill is legal..." You can keep the deer if you hit it and reported it to the MNR. If you don't have a Certificate of Reporting Game
must be obtained, you're illegally in possession of the carcass
"Every person who acquires the carcass of a black bear, woodland caribou, white-tailed deer, American elk, or moose SHALL report the acquisition immediately to the nearest MNR office."
 
i know a few on here collect and eat roadkill on here.but i'll let them tell ya .people on here would never think twice about gutting and eating a deer they shot the day before and could not find it
 
swissrallyman said:
Or you could have a CSI moment and mesure the liver temp using the wifes turkey thermometer; the liver will cool at a rate of 1.5 degrees per hour until it reaches surrounding temperature. I guess you would have to look up the body temperature of deer somewhere first and then make your calculations.
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Your joking right??:)
 
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