How long do I have to skin a deer.

Well Victor you had you opportunity to embellish this story a little and you failed miserably :)
Truthfully it is great to hear your home and that you didnt imale yourself on the stick or whatever it was...could have been much worse.
The deer will taste great when it gets into your freezer then oven each and every time venison is on the menu.
PBR and venison??? I woulda though Guinness myself at least.
Best Regards & Speedy Recovery.
Rob
 
Just my 2 cents. Have hung deer hide on until butchering all my life. The one mistake I see repeatedly is not taking time to prop open the cavity and more so the back legs. Leave the back quarters touching in the pelvic area is a recipe for spoilage to start and it will in less than 24 hours. Don't let it freeze before skinning, did that once and never again. Our group of 6 sat down last night and counted up results from the last 14 years and out of 101 deer in that time we have never had one go bad and we process our own.
 
BigUglyMan said:
So there's an unattended deer in a garage at an empty house...have you got any propane for the BBQ?
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That is what I thought, will bring a 24. :)

There are times when animal is down late evening, gut, spread the legs and leave until morning if it is cool outside. If not, turn on the flashlights and keep working.
 
Victor Simon said:
Thanks for the replies everyone. I do not have time to reply to all of them this morning, unfortunately. My BBQ is cold and the single PBR is still in my fridge. I skinned the deer and it was actually still warm which worried me a little. It is windy here so I left the door open for 45 mins and let it cool off. It will be at a butcher tomorrow!

I cut my hand by tripping and landing on a broken branch while dragging the deer to the road. Good thing I did not impale myself. I would like to say I am tough enough to stitch myself up but I am not, haha.
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Turns out powdergun's question was smarter than my response! You had bad luck with that buck, eat him with malice.
 
c-fbmi said:
The last three times I needed stitches in my hands I did it myself. The first time I did it I waited in the hospital line up for 3 1/2 hours, finally got POd and went home and threw 5 stitches in myself. Used purple thread, it was quite pretty actually, and then I put a drop of crazy glue on each knot so they would stay done up. Next 2 times I just went ahead and did it and never bothered with the wait at the hospital. Just wash it up good load 'er up with polysporin and stitch away. It really doesn't hurt that bad..........and hand skin is unusually tough and thick, well at least mine is..........
Apparently I have a much higher pain threshold than patience threshold !!
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Dude.... there's easier ways now. Steri strips or crazy glue.
 
I grew up being taught to remove the hide ASAP no matter what temperature it is. I also grew up seeing tons of dried out meat trimmings being tossed.

Against my elders wishes, I decided to leave the hide on for a week one time. I haven't removed the hide before hanging since.
 
I have wasted a lot of meat by not removing the hide and exposing the ballistic damaged meat. This can be hard to see with hide on and can further spoil the adjacent clean undamaged meat.
 
Hide stays on until it's time for butchering. Depending on the situation and time of year (temperature), this can be anywhere from one day to a week.

When I was younger my hunting party would generally just keep hanging animals until the hunting week was up. Saturday night was usually a long one... with some very sleepy and hungover hunters in the morning/afternoon! On really successful years, a good part of Sunday would be dedicated to processing as well.
 
Hide is insulation and holds the heat in. Least you should do is open it up as much as possible, including splitting the pelvis, to help cooling. guys that complain about poor tasting meat are usually the ones that neglect carcass care.
Grizz
 
Everybody ha their own ideas, but cooling of meat should be of utmost importance, and the first step in that is removing the hide ASAP. Circumstances sometimes prevent that, but don't kid yourself that it's better to leave the hide on if you can get it off.

Sometimes it's unavoidable, but it's not the best. You can get away with more when it's cold though.
 
Lot of crap here from guys in favor of leaving the hide on. Once dead, your deer is essentially in a slow cooker, you decide if that's good for meat quality. :confused:

Grizz
 
The OP was right to be concerned but it will be fine in his case, just not prime. Skin on is much of where gameyness comes from, deer you can get away with it and the larger the animal the worse it is. I've had friend's moose who subscribe to quartering skin on and there is a huge difference in flavour, and not in a good way, compared to abruptly cooled skin off meat. Look at how an abattoir handles beef and follow that as closely as you can, otherwise it's going to taste like "venison". There's no argument against commercial handling techniques, anything else is quite frankly wrong.

Here, when something's shot the goal is to get that skin off in the first hour, even quicker if you can. I cringe when I see guys with whole deer or bear in the back of their truck driving them home, or guys dragging a gutted but otherwise whole moose with an ATV. That's old world understanding before properly fresh and well handled meat became the expectation at the store. My great grandfather who moved out from PEI used to hang meat in his attic, warm and dry, saying it "seasoned" it. Tasted horrific, but in his world that was venison and just gameyness.
 
Taking it to the butcher today. I forgot they are closed on Sundays. The place I was going to take it said I wouldn't have my stuff back until after Christmas! Fortunately I found a place that had a space.

If I shoot a white tail I'm going to make my own sausage and stuff but that is a whole other topic.

Thanks again everyone.
 
As long as it's 5 degrees or cooler I would leave it as long as possible... I have aged deer for up to a month. Have a thermometer in the garage and keep an eye on temperature, it may get 10 degrees at the hottest part of the day outdoors...but by the time the garage starts to warm up it is usually cooling off outdoors and id open the door and windows to let the cooler air in. I leave the hide on until a day or two before I am going to process it.
 
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Far North said:
Odds are you are going to have to update your tetanus shot too. Expect a sore arm begging anywhere from a few hours to a day after the shot lasting a day or two.
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disagree. Tetanus is soil borne, if he cut himself gutting the deer it was a clean knife, the only worry would be a blood borne pathogen from the deer.
 
we always get the hide off as soon as possible, it is important to us to cool that meat as much as possible and as quickly as possible, makes a big difference in the smell of the meat. After field dressing, if there is snow, we fill the cavity and use a rib spreader to hold the cavity open to help release the heat. Usually when we get home we use the garden hose to wash out the cavity, hang and skin it. The next morning we butcher it. Venison is not beef and does not require any hanging for a length of time.
 
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