What to do with the carcasses?

[Sheamus]

Have to agree, we used to load them into astra vans, just get a plasterers tray, probably easier than into a ute, remove guts, head and below the knees in the field, then sell it at the dealers. Buy some proper meat with proceeds.I think some people over think things.
Dragged my biggest out with a lawn tractor.

You use what you got to use, what ever comes to hand and just get on with it.

 

[Klenchblaize]

Watch out for ticks and keds. The latter have a party trick of hiding behind a head rest and leaping onto one's neck.

K

 

[Tommy_gun]

Watch out for ticks and keds. The latter have a party trick of hiding behind a head rest and leaping onto one's neck.

K

What are keds?

 

[Klenchblaize]

What are keds?

K

 

[Tommy_gun]

View attachment 454082
K

Hmm, a trailers even more appealing now. If one of them or a tick got on one of the kids in the car then my missus will be trying and sell me to the game dealer!

 

[devon deer stalker]

What are keds?

They are generally found on deer, but can be found in your other halves hair

 

[Mickeydredd]

Hmm, a trailers even more appealing now. If one of them or a tick got on one of the kids in the car then my missus will be trying and sell me to the game dealer!

If the Passat is the main / only family car then I'd definately get a trailer....or there may be trouble ahead......

 

[wytonpjs]

Hmm, a trailers even more appealing now. If one of them or a tick got on one of the kids in the car then my missus will be trying and sell me to the game dealer!

If you shoot enough deer, process enough deer, go shooting with dogs, there's EVERY chance you are going to collect ticks! Keds are just annoying and oddly enough, I see relatively few now compared to years ago.

Back to ticks - you can go for a walk and come back bitten by ticks - I remember this from a couple of years ago popping up on a feed.



And from me (wrists/watch straps are a favoured location):

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

What are keds?

You’ll soon find out

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

They are generally found on deer, but can be found in your other halves hair

Yep

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

Keds usually appear while watching tv or you’ll feel one creep across the back of you neck while in bed, then the next morning you notice the little bastard going across the pillow and under the quilt.

Welcome to the wonderful world of red deer stalking!

Their a pain In The arse when their alive and will drive you mad and the biggest ball ache when their dead

 

[VSS]

I've seen more keds on pigeons than I have on deer, but you don't hear the pigeon shooters making such a song and dance about sharing their hide or their car with the carcasses of their quarry.

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

I've seen more keds on pigeons than I have on deer, but you don't hear the pigeon shooters making such a song and dance about sharing their hide or their car with the carcasses of their quarry.

That’s a new one on me, never seen a ked on a pigeon and I’ve shot a lot of pigeon

 

[Tommy_gun]

Keds are a new one to me, I’ve experienced ticks in Scotland but I can’t say I’ve picked one up here in Shropshire. I’m not looking forward to dealing with them, it’s making me itch just thinking about it!

 

[Jh1986]

Last fallow I was dragging out, I could feel something scurrying about the back of my neck. I whipped my hand back to squish whatever it was and my hand came back with a ked. I swear the bloody thing traversed several ft of drag rope, to attack me from the drag sled.

I'm glad the truck bed is separate from the cabin, but I am looking to shift over to my Mk1 Shogun as my stalking vehicle. I'll have to start using deer tray covers.

 

[Freeforester]

Venison mince is particularly good for lasagne. One of my favourites!
Possibly the best I've had was on a visit to the @Freeforester household.

Dishes like lasagne, bolognese, chilli-con-carne, shepherd's (stalker's) pie etc are an excellent way of introducing venison to people who haven't tried it before.

It may of course be just a regional thing, but I never found any difficulty whatsoever in selling all the minced venison I ever produced, but this was tempered by 1) the small matter of prioritising any more valuable uses for the lesser cuts that offer mince meat, after which I could produce about 3 pound packs of mince per roe deer, and 2) scrupulously avoiding use of any injured, bruised or otherwise tainted/inferior quality meat, which would inevitably lead to impairment of the quality and eating qualities of the mince - I once saw a video of a butcher making a virtue of using bloodied meat in his mince, suggesting it added ‘depth of flavour’, which to my mind said a lot more about his ‘enterprising spirit’ at the same time highlighting his culinary and tastebud deficiencies, as well as a startling lack of forethought for his longer term relationship toward his victims customer base.

My more immediate concern however was the inverse nature of the relationship between effort expended to reward for same for what I have never personally been persuaded is something of culinary greatness, ie a venison sausage - unless it has been augmented with fat (not necessarily pork fat, but more often than not this is the additional required ingredient one has to acquire and mix in to make perfectly delicious venison mince into a decidedly unremarkable product which at the first opportunity under a grill tries its damnedest to disassociate itself from the additive ingredient!

I have long harboured the suspicion - well founded by observation of market butchers leaving all too convincing quantities of ‘evidence’ to the fact under their grilling area- that sausages are a traditional means of externalising the excess fat from domestic animals in product form, and the fact that what little fat found on roe and red deer venison is best removed rather than incorporated into one’s products, with the possible exception of a thin cap layer on the Ghillie rump steaks, which is eye-pleasing on the stall, do no harm visually in the final presentation and yet are generally not eaten once the steak is cooked and served.

Minced venison, offered as a base for lasagne, home made burgers (there’s four in a pound pack, a recipe/method label may be stuck on the reverse of the pack - ‘just add your own additional seasonings etc, that way you will know exactly what is in your burger, madam’), bolognese, etc was I found always a very popular hit with returning customers, and I imagine was rather less by way of work and cleaning of equipment than offering what to my mind is an over-worked and nutritionally & culinary inferior product barely fit for a squaddie much less a King or Queen, and for little more if anything by way of return for the effort.

Of course it may also be down to cultural/regional differences, and we do have a long-traditional regional country dish of mince and tatties, with either boiled cabbage or skirlie (an oatmeal onion and suet based delight) which whilst may to many seem a fairly plain and less than exciting offering, is nonetheless a very popular regular dish here, and clearly also when made with venison mince, but this was my experience. When the mince is so good in its own right, why try to fix something that isn’t broken?

And yes Tim, the lady of the house is an able cook!

 

[Triumph_Dave]

When shooting Reds and they drop in a accessible location then I have found the easiest kit to handle them is a mid sized tractor with a foreloader/ bucket, a couple of lifting straps, spreader bar and blue paper rolls. Pick them up in the bucket, take them to where you want to gralloch and do a suspended gralloch, then transport them back to car, if going into a car put them into a sled in the back of the car and cover with the netting that you put over a carcass in the summer.. this at least contains most of the keds. Otherwsie put them in a trailer behind the car in a sled and cover the trailer top. If you want you can then go back and use the tractors bucket to dig a hole for the remains...
For own consumption we debone everything and process into joints, mince, diced and steaks.. all vac packed to size for the number of people in the house hold.. thats me and the wife...

If you dont have access to a tractor then a trolley/deer cart and/or a sled that will fit into a car is a cheaper option, followed by a quad with a trailer... You can buy or build lightweight trailers for a quad that uses a sled.. that way you reduce the kit you have to use.

What ever you use, look after your back as has already been pointed out, the weight of a Red badly handled can stuff yr back.. remember lifting techniques... I am off to the docs tomorrow to discuss my lower back pain!!!

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

Red venison is a big no no after a slightly rutty stag was butchered, I was nearly divorced after the lasagne went in the bin.

Now they all go to the dealer

 

[Freeforester]

Last fallow I was dragging out, I could feel something scurrying about the back of my neck. I whipped my hand back to squish whatever it was and my hand came back with a ked. I swear the bloody thing traversed several ft of drag rope, to attack me from the drag sled.

I'm glad the truck bed is separate from the cabin, but I am looking to shift over to my Mk1 Shogun as my stalking vehicle. I'll have to start using deer tray covers.

The clever parasite is always looking for its next host, I’m sure the ked, as unwelcome as they are, are able to recognise that the sudden loss of comfort offered by the recently ‘cooled/culled’ host necessitates a re-evaluation of its by now somewhat diminishing options ( and yes, I certainly know ‘the feeling’ too!). A rubber washer or similar on your drag rope with an application of permethrin etc may help, as will the use of long arm veterinary inspection gloves for the gralloch, it don’t be surprised to still find unwelcome guests in your bath tub later!

 

[Nickb]

I've seen more keds on pigeons than I have on deer, but you don't hear the pigeon shooters making such a song and dance about sharing their hide or their car with the carcasses of their quarry.

You are on about flat flies or louse flies , get them on birds.