dealing with a frozen deer... advice needed

RoscoeT

RoscoeT

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So I managed to fill my second doe tag and hung the old girl in my shed same way as I did before. The only difference now is this damn cold snap has frozen her solid. And the forecast shows no signs of improvement.

I'm looking for advice on how to get her chopped up and into my deep freeze.

I think my options are...

1. Let her hang until the weather warms and thaws her. Then butcher as normal.

2. Bring in a space heater or to a heated space and thaw her in place. Then butcher as normal.

3. Get an electric saw of some kind. Quarter her frozen and bring into the house to thaw a enough to pack. I assume I will need to get a heater to even get the skin off to quarter her proper.

She is hard as a rock with it being around -15 for the last week. I did not expect it to get so cold for so long and so fast. I thought I could get to her in time.

She was almost completely frozen by the time I got her hung up. I know that I should have cut her as soon as possible but was not able to.

Now I'm a bit stuck with a giant doecicle. :(

Any suggestions?
 
Well we freeze ours on purpose and then use a bandsaw!

You should be able to unfreeze her enough to butcher. the trick will be to get the meat frozen again ASAP afterward
 
That's happened to me a few times. I will usually just bring the carcass in the house, and throw it on the kitchen table for a couple of hours till it thaws enough to de-bone it properly.

Side note -- having it freeze and then thaw has never hurt anything in my experience; meat has always been just fine.
 
eastwind said:
Read #3 in post above. It hasn't been skinned yet.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and? He's gonna have to clean up the table when he's done anyway. :)



Basically, the idea is -- the critter needs to thaw, and preferably over several hours in mild (room-temp-ish) heat, not real fast under high heat (over a propane space heater in the shop). However he decides to get that done, as long as that gets done, it should work fine.
 
I've skinned a few frozen deer. Sucks, but it can be done.

Chuck a tarp on a table, or on the freezer, drag the carcass inside for a few hours, cart it back out to the shed to skin it.

Semi-frozen works well for grinding burger and for knife cutting steaks. :)

Cheers
Trev
 
I seem to get one that freezes hard every year. No big deal. Wait till the weather warms and the skin is soft enough to get off. Once skinned you can bring it into the basement or other cool area until it thaws enough to cut up.

BTW, every deer I have had this happen to has turned out fantastic, including a couple of rutting old bucks.
 
You should have seen the look on my buddy's wife's face when she came home and saw the three frozen deer propped up in "her" bath tub thawing out so we could cut them up.
 
just make sure you dont let it warm up too much ( cold but warm enuf to skin and cut it)
I had my dad bring me his deer last year that had the exact same thing happen. I thawed it out in the basement enuf so it could be skinned ( will skin even when almost frozen lol )
then I had to cut it up brrr .meat should be fine just keep it on the cooler side and freeze it asap good luck !!!
 
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