Introduction:
>>JASON: Hi I'm Jason Zimmer with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and today I'm going to be going through a demonstration on how to field dress a whitetail deer. Before I get into the actual field dressing, I'm going to talk about a few things that are important when you walk up on your deer for the first time. You of course want to make sure that it has expired approach it from the back side poke it with a stick check the eye as you've probably seen on other hunting videos and then the first thing you need to do is fill out your tag with the town and the date of harvest and affix that to the animal before you get started processing it, so I'm going to do that. I've already filled out my tag here and I use a license holder, just pin it to the ear that way it's always going to be with the deer. Talk about some of the things that I use, bring along when I'm going to be anticipating field dressing a deer one is a large Ziploc bag and that is for the heart some people also take some of the other organs to eat I just take the heart but it's helpful to have a bag to put it in once you get to it. I also wear rubber gloves you should always wear rubber gloves when you're field dressing any game animal to protect yourself. My knife that I use, it's got a shorter blade I like this knife I can control it, control it well and I usually have a sharpener which I'll talk about so you can just put an extra edge on your knife as you're moving along. and then some people use them I don't always have it with me but this is a tool that helps you cut around the anus when you get to that point. Some of the reasons why we field dress an animal, there's a number of different methods you can follow they all have the same basic steps to them but the basic gist is to get the entrails out of the animal and cool the animal down as quickly as possible so that you can make sure that the meat is going to be the highest quality that it can be.
Removing the anus:
>>JASON: So now I'm going to proceed with the steps that I use to field dress an animal. My gloves on. And you want to make sure that you keep your Hunter orange on throughout the process and if you have you know an extra hat or vest and you're not in a field situation like this you're in the woods, it's nice to hang it up in a in a tree or a branch above where you're field dressing the animal just for safety reasons. So one of the first things I do after I've tagged the animal, I'm going to try and get it to a point where I have it on a downhill so the head is a little bit uphill so that way it just helps me remove the entrails a little bit easier. And on this one I'm going to start with the anus and I'm going to show this is the “butt out tool” and I'll show how you get this out so this just goes in, if you don't have it you can just use your fingers and cut around it but this does make it a lot easier because things can be tough to hold on to and it gets a little difficult and a little unsafe if it's slippery and you're cutting with a knife down there. So the point of this is it just gives you a grip and then you can easily cut around the whole perimeter of the anus and clear it from the skin and it'll make it easier to pull out through the body cavity after you get in there. And now we've got it separated from the body cavity and I'm just going to cut around it a little bit to help free it up a little bit more, and you want to be a little bit careful here because the bladder is going to be up in here a little bit and you don't want to puncture that and get that on the meat so once you've freed it up, whether you're using your hands or this tool or any of the other available tools on the market for doing this, you want to remove the tool from it. Set that aside.
Cutting the skin:
>>JASON: And then I like to use my legs, it's nice if you're in the field and you can get a tree or a rock or something to prop the deer up on its back it helps it a little bit better, or if you have another person with you, you can have them hold it right up on its back but oftentimes you are going to be by yourself so if you just use your, your knees, to prop the animal up hold the legs open and then I typically will get a hold of the skin somewhere in here on a female it's around the udders where you can get a hold of the skin a little bit and just start to make an initial cut. And what you're going to do is you're going to work all the way up to the base of the sternum, and what I like to do, I like to actually skin it back a little bit open it up it helps keep the hair off the meat and the biggest thing you want to avoid here is jabbing into the body cavity because you do not want to, if you if the shot hasn't done it you don't want to puncture the intestines or the stomach because then you'll get that material on the meat and you'll have to clean it more significantly than if you don't puncture it and again I'm holding some pressure skinning back the skin a little bit as I go taking care not to stick my knife into the cavity I'm just working the skin right here and just as a warning when you do get into the body cavity you know there can be a smell you know all animals have a kind of a distinct smell but especially if your shot has punctured any of the gastrointestinal system there can be a significant smells so just be prepared for that
Opening the body cavity:
>>JASON: Okay so I can feel the sternum right up here and I've, I've worked my skin back so as you can see this deer has been expired for a little bit of time they do get bloated this gets tight so this is a part where you want to be most careful with your knife to not get into the body cavity and puncture something so what I typically do is I start to just do little flicks and then I've already just with my finger once you get past that, that thin line of muscle just with my finger I'm already into the body cavity so then I'll slowly work this open and carefully with my knife, get the hole big enough so that I can slide my hand in, what I'm doing here is I'm putting my hand in and angling my hand down holding away the, the stomach contents and then sliding the knife up in so I'm protecting anything from the inside from cutting it with my knife, at least attempting to do that. Okay and you can see here this cartilage I'm right up into the sternum now which is about as far as you're going to get with an actual knife without using a saw and when I get towards the end I'll talk about a couple of the other methods that people will use to open up the rib cage and actually open up the pelvis I don't typically do that but I can talk about it and I'll maybe show it on another here in a minute, so again putting my hand in, keeping the stomach contents away so I'm I'm creating a gap here keeping the stomach contents away from the knife and you'll see the pressure, this is the stomach that's what you don't want to puncture, is already starting to push the stomach out of the opening I'm creating. At this point I'm right down, right down to where it's I'm hitting the pelvis and the and the two hams so I don't want to cut again some people cut through this I don't want to cut into that because I don't want to expose the meat underneath to anything. Back to the side. So at this point you need to you can start to get some of the stuff out to relieve some pressure but right up in through here you have your diaphragm and that's what separates your heart and lungs from the liver and gastrointestinal system and you need to get through that to get up into the chest cavity to cut off the trachea and esophagus and pull out the heart and lungs and you'll be able to remove the vast majority of the, the entrails at that point and this is where you know it does get a little messier and you have to kind of go by feel so what I first do is I I find the diaphragm I hold all the materials away and I puta hole through the diaphragm and then I'm going to reach my arm up in here you'll feel the heart you'll kind of feel the lungs and then right up about in here I'm going to grab you can feel the, the stiff trachea in the esophagus and then I'm going to slide my knife up in keeping the blade pointing away from my hand and then grab it and then start to cut it so I can break free the trachea and pull the heart and lungs all out. So you can see if I can show you if you look in here here's the diaphragm right here it's a thin membrane that you need to cut through but again I really want to be careful not to cut any of the stomach or gastrointestinal system. Okay so I'm through it, reach up in here and I already feel it, it's a the heart is going to be a very firm muscle I'm kind of triangular shaped and you'll feel it right up in here once I feel that I'll slide my knife up in ahead of my hand reach up in as far as I can above that heart and put my hand around the trachea and the esophagus and start cutting through that. Okay I've cut it already so now I can pull down and here's the heart and lungs coming out and this part takes a little bit of force and you can pull but then you need to you need to work to continue to cut that diaphragm because that will hold all this material and see this is the diaphragm right here it's very thin but it's strong and it'll hold all the material and won't let you pull it out, once you get that mostly cut, you can pull it most of the way out and you may you may need to cut a little bit where it's attached but you can see right in here those are your tenderloins it's one of the nicest cuts on the animal so you want to make sure you're careful when you're cutting in here so you don't get into the tenderloins. From there, because I've already cut around the anus in the back this should pull right out without any trouble in there it all came out right there it's a lot of fat in here you can pull that out but at this point now you've basically removed all the entrails and there's an opening right straight through the back side so that.
Draining the blood:
>>JASON: You can drain out the blood. Alright so one of the things I didn't mention and this goes for any time in the season but if you're archery hunting and you've shot this animal with a broad head, you know if you don't find your arrow you should assume that that broadhead is up in here so you have to be super careful when you're reaching up in. The other thing you don't you don't quite know you know I generally check my animals over for any other wounds before I start field dressing because it could have been hit by an arrow previously and there could be a broadhead buried in there so you have to be extra careful anytime you haven't found your broadhead if you don't process your own animal and you bring it to a a butcher always should mention that you didn't find the broadhead just so they can take extra care when they're butchering the animal so the next step that I do at this point is I'll get my deer and I'll take it, see there's a lot of blood still left in there, and I'll try and get it to a point where I can put my foot here, prop it up like this, prop it up for a little bit and let it let the body cavity drain out so then the blood comes out and then we'll, so that deer is field dressed, it's clean if you did for some reason puncture the stomach contents and you have stomach contents inside that's when you want to hang it by the head and rinse it out with water and then dry it typically you don't want to put water on to rinse it out in this case I would not I just let it drain naturally, maybe dry it wipe it out with a paper towel because water is one of the things that can cause bacterial growth but when you have rumen and contents in there you want to wash it out and then dry it well with paper towels so this deer is ready to go it's cold out now I could hang this deer for a few days because it's going to be below 40 degrees if we're talking archery season you'd want to get the body cavity propped open pack it with ice and get it to a cooler or butcher facility where they can cool the animal down and make sure that meat doesn't start to spoil at all. Going back to the entrails, I mentioned I like to take the heart, and you'll see this heart is out of it, this heart's actually been, been shot it's still good you can just cut around the, the damage portion but then I just remove the heart and then to keep it clean put it in the bag and you want to get that cooled down fairly quickly too, some people eat some of the other organs I do not but in this case with this we're out in a field people could walk out here the common courtesy thing to do would be to take this and get it down into the woods somewhere away from trails, away from where people with dogs or pets could get into it they will get cleaned up very quickly by coyotes and birds of prey and other scavengers they won't be out there but private property, anywhere you are just make sure you're using common courtesy and disposing of this where people aren't going to see it and people or animals aren't going to get into it .