My daughter just shot a goose and a duck.Its her first bird hunting.......she's really getting into this,but i dont hunt so Im not sure of something. Im short on time today,so I Just wrapped them up whole with the feathers still on and threw them in the fridge. How long can they stay like that without spoiling before I can process them?
Don't know about birds but for deer I always gutted them immediately and had them skinned and butchered the first day. I never bought into the whole aging thing. The whole idea was to get the meat to cool downs as fast as possible.
With the feathers, you want to pluck them immediately while the tissue is still soft and warm. I'm not a hunter btw, that just makes most sense to me?
We gut and feather as soon as we are done hunting while out in the field. Not sure how long you have how hers are now though.
I will put the birds on their back so that fluids drains down. Have eaten birds cleaned two days after being shot with no issues. The French have a habit of hanging birds without cleaning for several days to age. My usual policy is to gut before they got into my game bag while stuffing cavity with prairie grass. Keeps me legal and avoids birds getting too hot during warm weather
I have waited 2-3 days before but I know they were shot in the head. If any internals were ruptured I would want to clean them asap. Youtube has a couple of good videos of how to breast them out. Plucking is a pain in the ass. I enjoy eating ducks, geese not so much. Congrats on having a little hunter on your hands. Good to hear about a kid getting out in the woods!
In most states the hunter must have definitive evidence of sex while transporting from the field to home. Rules can vary on what that means by state. So I find keeping the bird whole but gutted is the best policy for staying legal until fully processing at home.
Damn! I’m new to hunting and currently familiarizing myself with hunting rules. How da hell can I tell the gender of a bird? In flight?
Sorry Mr. Junk watcher but I’m referring to birds. Since you’re a bird’s junk expert, does your above rule still apply? Can you see a bird’s junk underneath their feathers?
On birds, when it matters what sex they are, it is not overly difficult to tell which is which. Pheasants and Mallards are the two that come to mind.
Gut them ASAP. Then you can wait to finish processing them. Since you are at home and not in the field, rinse them out too.
At this point I would just fillet the breasts off of both birds. I usually do that anyway since the rest of the bird really doesn't have enough meat on it to make it worthwhile. Do you know how to cook wild goose or duck? It isn't hard to have them turn out inedible if you don't know how to prepare them. The easiest way I have found is to just saute the breast meat in butter with some garlic and herbes de Provence, but do not over cook them. If you can get everybody to eat them that way, I cook them rare to medium rare at most. With the goose, I slice the breast into medallions before cooking so they cook very fast and stay tender and don't get the wild/liver flavor going.