Thread: Meat Contamination

I look at it in simple terms. Meat (muscle) is "clean" in terms of bacterial colonisation, the outside of the animal and the guts are not. A bullet passing through an animal will introduce bacteria in to the meat. Additionally, damaged meat provides a nice environment for bacteria to grow. It might be OK to eat if you're fast enough with chilling, but why risk it? I discard anything which is damaged. With ducks, I only ever find a few STEEL shot and cut out the damaged meat in the same way.