What Max ambient temp will you hang your deer in a tree at your camp?
exactly. flies won't fly below 40. Let it get above that and they will start perking up. I disagree with putting them on ice immediately. The meat needs to get to ambient temp before putting it in the chest. Reason is it can spoil when put on ice when still warm and it can also toughen up the meat.A microbiologist at work told me below 40. But it depends for how long. Even when its 70, the body is hot, I'd hang it a while before the body cooled down. I get them on ice asap, unless its as cold or colder than a frig. or freezer.
The ranch owner where we hunt always talked about letting their deer hang all winter... be it cold or warm, and carving off what they wanted to eat that day. He said it would get a crust on the outside that they would trim off...LOL not for me but it worked for them.
The main reason I process all my own deer........It never fails , I'll see atleast a couple of trucks comming down I10 , 60+ degrees with whole carcasses laid in the back stiff legged and all .
Then think of all the people that take their deer to places where it all gets dumped together and rationed out later when they package it.
Food for thought , pardon the pun...
Zentner's Daughters ... ?Our cooler was an old commercial one that we bought off a closed resturant in San Angelo, Texas.
I do my own processing, and I let mine age quite a bit - regardless of temp. I'm probably one of those seen "...driving down I10..." but have never had a problem in using the 'trim off the crust' method.
What I actually do is protect the meat from flies and going sour (when wet) then cut wrap and freeze immediately AFTER smelling the first bit of spoilage (trimmed away). This invariably occurs in the areas damaged by the bullet or arrow.
As mentioned, I do lose (I think less then 5%) some, but I grind very little of nature's best red meat into sausage. I do like venison sausage, but instead I wind up with steaks and roasts so tender that they can be cut with a fork. It boils down to that as good as many processors can do sausage, I'll go for a hind-quarter (or front) roast that's been smoked, then rebaked in a cream based wine and garlic sauce (wife's a great cook) every time.
I DO field dress (including removing the tarsals) immediately.
That is NOT the way I treat my (also delicious) feral hogs. Pork is 100% a different meat. However hanging/aging deer longer then most do has worked well for me for the last 50 or so deer that I've done it to.