Thread: Meat Contamination

Originally Posted by Rushy

OK, firstly I would not be too concerned about any form of poisoning from the use of lead projectile in and of itself. Dealing with your second point, there is typically trauma (bruising and coagulation) that occurs around the would and that is what I have always trimmed away from the meat that I harvest. Other (non lead based) forms of poisoning are what I would encourage you to be aware of. These can typically be caused by a number of reasons such as the animal not being recovered quickly enough in the summertime, poor shot placement busting a gut bag, the meat not being being cooled quick enough, the animal being sickly, etc. if your nose tells you the meat is off then don’t harvest and similarly if your eyes tell you the meat is off (e.g. green bone) don’t harvest it. These things are generally caused by micro organisms deep within major muscle groups putrefying.

Now that I have said enough to scare the shit out of many a novice, I will add that if you recover, gut and cool any animal quickly, you will undoubtedly get to harvest a great deal of useable meat.

These are very good points. Can I add the following to them : learn what a healthy animal looks like on the hoof and only shoot healthy animals in good physical body condition. For deer this means an animal that is filled out and rounded at the tail and rump, not sunken around the tail with the hip pin bones visible. 2: learn what healthy organs look like lungs, liver and the windpipe. If the animal is thin, organ colour is not right or has lesions on organs, Discard