Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Deer with Infection

My wife shot a whitetail last week, that I assume had been stuck with an arrow.

At the top of his shoulder, base of his spine, he had an infection with a puss sack about the size of a softball. Pretty gross.

The buck was in pretty sad shape. His front shoulders were in pretty bad atrophy, with his shoulderbones sticking out pretty bad. The hinds hadn't atrophied much, but didn't have much fat on them either.

The meat, even the stuff right around the infection, looks completely normal. No smell, no off color, nothing.

My question is, would any of you hesitate to eat the deer? Is there any reason the meat could be bad? I'm thinking as long as there isn't smell or off color, it's got to be fine. My butcher agrees.

I'd just like some other opinions on this before we dig in.

If it were me, I'd cut anything questionable (infection, gangrenous, etc) away. I don't think the rest of meat is bad, but may suffer taste-wise if the deer's been struggling to survive.

I'd probably steak out the straps save the tenderloins, and make jerky or sausage from the rest.

A few years back my buddy dropped off a side of antelope for me. He didn't know it when he gave it to me, but when I butchered it, I found a 35 caliber slug stuck in the rear of his spine with some nasty green meat surrounding it. I was pretty liberal with the meat I cut-and-tossed away, but in the end the rest of the antelope was tasty!

--Duck911

If it were me I'd condemn the carcass and get a replacement tag from the conservation officer. I suppose, like here, that's the way it works in MT if the animal is inedible by commercial standards.

Though it would be a shame, I'd throw it away.

Mike

I would give a good boundary to the weird areas and cut the rest without concern...