First butchering "accident"

[Lowdown3]

So dressing a small buck the other night I had my first butchering accident.

I really gotta run some lighting out to the area I use cause this isn't the first time and won't be the last we end up doing this at dark.

Didn't help that I was rushing cause it was freezing either.

Cutting "backstrap" off and trying to keep tension with one hand while cutting with the other I sliced my thumb. Stupid mistake, saw it almost a nano second before I did it. Set the knife down and walked away for a second. The boy says "what happened?" The wife is cutting meat off a back leg and stops and just says "He cut himself. How bad is it?"

Course it was one of those clean ones that you think at first, wow this isn't even gonna bleed! So I quickly change gloves and work on getting out of the 30 degree night. Later when I pulled that glove off the blood was all over the place. Just one of those stupid annoying places to get cut cause you end up banging it on everything then.

I will say this, a cordless reciprocating saw is the da bomb for butchering. We are short on space in the freezer so the head went to the dogs and it came off in a jiff with the saw zall. The rest of the carcass we cut up that way also and divided it amongst the dogs as a Christmas eve present.

As we turned off the light and started heading to the house, you could hear five dogs munching on various deer parts in the dark. The wife says "they sound like zombies in a movie."

They'll be some jerky in the future again.

[EX121]

Sorry to hear thar, but good you got some meat. Never thought of using the recip saw. I hate that nano second when something says "DON'T. Wish I would listen to it more.

[Rmplstlskn]

I am sure a long-term guy like you with multiple medical classes washed the wound thoroughly and used disinfected it as much as possible... <grin>

A friend who also did a little oopsie cut on a finger dressing a deer ended up with a nice, two-week long infection in his finger. Said he cleaned it. Maybe he did, maybe it was a sucky job, don't know. But it sure looked painful...

Rmpl

[protus]

sides the sawz all. tree pruners/lopers the bigger kind. makes quick work of leg joints ,ribs etc...
weve had a few close calls in the dark as well....headlamps win the day imho.

[Lowdown3]

Have used the lopers before, usually the little Fiskers hatchet does a nice job also. With the bunnies it's more than enough. I thought of the saw zall because it was dark and I didn't want to make (more of a ) a mess ;)

[protus]

saw zalls pretty common...weve used them before...

but you get spoiled..and forget how tough/hard it is to break/cut thru cartilage and bone with a 4-5 inch fixed blade lol


on your back strap..if your in a rush they'll rip right out...pull from the hams to the neck..or one person pull one just run the knife on the ribs/vertebrae..


congrats on the deer as well.!11

[PerryJeff]

Sorry to here about cut and congrats on the deer as well...
Thanks for the tip on lopers protus makes good sense.
[QUOTEsaw zalls pretty common...weve used them before...

but you get spoiled..and forget how tough/hard it is to break/cut thru cartilage and bone with a 4-5 inch fixed blade lol ][/QUOTE]
I agree totally... I am getting to the point I hang and skid then let the deer hang and freeze. The sawzall works far better on frozen meat. Anyway all I do is split them in half with the sawzall then I just cut each half up to fit in gallon freezer bags.
Most of my cooking is done in dutch oven in stove or on wood burner using trivit so its great and I just keep going tell falls of the bone in with rice or potatoes in stew type..
biggest down side is I don't have the nice steaks for cooking without letting chunk thaw and cutting it up in the kitchen.

[xdpatriot]

Good job on the venison. We use loppers as well. My uncle used to do it all with a old timer pocket knife. He could split the hips and all. I never could do it well. Ahhhhh to be young again and realize what was important to learn.