Spraying a deer down before you butcher it with a repellent to either get rid of the ticks or kill them before you start. Seems logical last two deer we cut up was loaded with them and the second you get one on you your paranoid there's more where that. Came from.

If I'm worried about it, I spray OFF on me. Then skin the bastrd real quick and move on. Usually after a killing frost, I don't see many ticks.

Try doing a New England Moose. Thousands of ticks crawling out while you are skinning.

Just skin them quick. Then have your wife check you for ticks!

Usually it's at deer camp with a bunch of dudes,. I think a quick shot of deer or raid before skinned shouldn't hurt skin wouldn't stay on long enough to taint the meet

I wouldn't be spraying anything on the animal.

Just skin it ASAP and dispose of the hide then there's nothing to worry about.

Gotta admit watching parasites flee a dead carcass creeps me out.

I shot a gray fox while scouting one morning last year. It was before full sunrise and I had a lot of miles to cover, so I stuck the fox in the crotch of a juniper and left it for the return hike.

As luck would have it, I took another route and did not get back to the fox until about 28 hours after its death.

Figured the fleas would be long gone. I figured wrong. Fleas were still jumping out when I skinned it.

Some old trappers put critters into a bag with spray. I would use 7 dust, but when I tried it on my cat, it discolored the fur a bit

Few things are as funny as a cat leaping about in response to the death throes of a hundred fleas ...

But afterward, she was happy.

I would suggest not leaving 2 dead coyotes in your wife's car. She hates bugs and getting attacked by fleas on her way to work tipped her over the edge from weird to homicidal. If I keep them now they go in a garbage bag w/ insecticide for the ride home where they get hosed down before skinning.


mike r

You are either lucky, or unlucky, to be alive.

I would be worried about the ingesting the meat with "DEET" or other chemicals, fortunately have not had much issues with ticks (Nebraska). I would think that as the carcass "cools" the ticks would be more likely to look for a new host? Otherwise I would spray down with DEET and skin quickly and toss hide as others mentioned.

No kidding!

At camp we hang the bucks on the porch until we butcher them -a week or three later. We hang them head down and spray a large area of the floor with Tick Killer spray. Ticks will drop off the deer. When time to butcher we completely skin and cut the head off. We have found live ticks on the hide even after 3 weeks of hanging. Head and skin are then hung on a meat pole away from camp. Hide and head can also be put into a large garbage bag-- spray with tick killer and seal it tight. ------ Ticks galore when walking thru goldenrod. --Web
P.S. not a fan of spraying the hide while still on .

As others have said, I wouldn't spay anything on the hide. With that said, I don't want any animal riding in the same vehicle compartment as me after it's dead and cooling down either.

Once you start to roll the hide down on a hanging deer you aren't messing with the hair side anyways. If fleeing ticks are an issue, You could put something on the ground underneath it that will kill them when they drop off the hide. I have put a pan of water under a deer hanging in the garage if I wasn't going to skin it right away.

Last time I left one hanging in the garage, there were ticks all over the floor, and plenty still on the deer. Nowadays they stay outside.

Never done deer as most go to a processor but on hogs we will hang em, use a truck wash type brush and dawn dish detergent and wash them before skinning.
We soap em up real good and let it sit on them for about 15 minutes before washing off.
Its more for getting the mud etc off of them where they been wallowing but it will kill stuff crawling on them.
Dawn works best, the dollar store stuff doesnt seem to work.

If you want to keep the hide, just toss it over a bush. The ticks should disappear when it cools. They like their blood fresh.

The critters crawling off dead deer that I've seen up in the Adirondacks were deer lice, not ticks. Creepy, but good news is they don't appear to have a taste for humans.

That's a good idea as Dawn works great on dogs for fleas/ticks. I usually just wash my hogs while hanging with water to get all the dirt off, but might try the Dawn trick next time. Even though it's gone after the wash, any remaining would be safe for consumption.