B3573 Wisconsin’s Wild Game: Authors: Mary E. Mennes, professor, Enjoying the Harvest Department of Food Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and food management specialist, UW-Extension; Scott R. Craven, professor, Department of Wildlife Ecology, UW-Madison, and wildlife ecology specialist, UW-Extension. Authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of their colleagues Larry Meiller, Dennis Buege and Susan Nitzke. Produced by Cooperative Extension Publications, University of Wisconsin- Extension. Susan Anderson, designer; Rhonda Lee, editor. University of Wisconsin-Extension, Cooperative Extension, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Wisconsin counties, publishes this information to further the purpose of the May 8 and June 30, 1914 Acts of Congress. An Equal Employment Opportunity/ Affirmative Action employer, UW-Extension provides equal opportunities in employment and programming including Title IX requirements. This publication is available from your Wisconsin county Extension office or: Cooperative Extension Publications 30 N. Murray St., Room 245 Madison, WI 53715 by Mary E. Mennes & Scott R.Craven (608) 262-3346 B3573 Wisconsin’s Wild Game: Enjoying the Harvest (1992) I-12-92-5M-250-S 1 SOURCES OF WILD GAME ...............1 Wild game meats offer wonderful 40,000 deer are killed on Wisconsin opportunities for exciting and flavorful highways each year. Under Wisconsin LEGAL ISSUES....................1 meals. law, the motorist who kills a deer may HANDLING WILD GAME MEATS ............1 The information in this publication take possession of the carcass once it is DRESSING VENISON ................2 is intended to help you process, store and legally tagged. Although certainly not use Wisconsin wild game meats as part of recommended as a way to obtain LYME DISEASE AND VENISON SAFETY .....2 regular family meals or for special venison, the meat provides some small DRESSING UPLAND GAME BIRDS occasions. Advice on keeping the meats compensation for a traumatic and costly OR WATERFOWL ..................3 safe to eat and shortcuts in handling are experience. DRESSING SMALL GAME ANIMALS........3 included to help you avoid wasting a LEGAL ISSUES FREEZING WILD GAME .................4 valuable wild resource. In Wisconsin, several Department of COOKING WILD GAME .................4 SOURCES OF WILD GAME Natural Resources (DNR) regulations contents PUTTING ON A GAME DINNER ............5 isconsin residents enjoy an apply to storing and serving wild game: abundant and diverse wild game 1. Possession limits — usually twice CANNING VENISON OR OTHER GAME ........5 supply. The deer harvest was the daily bag limit — determine the NUTRIENT CONTENT OF WILD GAME MEATS . 6 aroundW 400,000 animals in 1990. At an amount of game you may freeze or HANDLING AND PREPARING WILD GAME ....7 average dressed weight of 100 pounds per otherwise preserve for later use. You may deer, this converts to 40 million pounds possess game legally obtained in other WILD GAME RECIPES of venison! In addition, the forests, fields states. VENISON .......................8 and waterways of the state yield millions 2. Wild game cannot be “sold” UPLAND GAME BIRDS AND WILD TURKEY ..14 of pounds of small game animals, except by licensed game farms and turkeys, upland game birds, ducks and distributors. A hunter cannot sell part of WATERFOWL ....................18 geese to hunters each year. a deer, for example, nor can you charge a SQUIRREL AND RABBIT .............22 Hunting provides the best access to fee for game meat as part of a meal, party MUSKRAT AND RACCOON ............26 wild game for the dinner table. However, or banquet. if you have a taste for wild meats but 3. When wild game is to be served as NUTRIENT COMPOSITION TABLES .......29 cannot or choose not to hunt — or are part of a banquet, party, church supper NOTES .........................31 unsuccessful — commercial sources of or similar function, you must obtain and RECIPE INDEX ....................33 “wild” meats are available. Commercial display a DNR “serving permit.” deer farms offer venison from several Check with your local DNR warden different deer species. Farm husbandry if you have questions about any of these with controlled diets produces excellent, regulations. tender venison. Game farms may offer HANDLING WILD GAME MEATS other species, including bison (buffalo), pheasants, waterfowl, turkeys and quail. hile each species has its own Sausages, jerky, smoked meats and other distinctive character and flavor, specialty items are also available. Check none will have a strong, “gamey” specialty food markets, sporting tasteW if handled properly. Field dressing magazines or mail order catalogues for and quick cooling of the carcass are sources of supply. important if you want to enjoy the meat Venison may come your way as a gift on the table. Aging, once thought or from a highway collision. Some necessary for wild meats, is not 2 3 recommended. Few hunters can control Besides propping the body cavity open, checks of the entire body are helpful and washing the bird thoroughly. storage conditions during aging, and you can promote cooling in the shade preventive measures, since a deer tick Many hunters skin game birds or spoilage is always a possibility. and in moving air. Never transport a requires 24 hours or more of feeding on waterfowl to avoid the time-consuming The key steps in field dressing any carcass on the warm hood of a car. If the the host to transmit the Lyme disease task of plucking them and removing game animal or bird include: carcass freezes within the first six hours, organism. pinfeathers. However, the meat may dry ❦ Remove entrails carefully, so the meat may toughen. In extremely cold There is no evidence to date that the out more during cooking unless you stomach, intestinal or bladder weather, you can slow chilling by putting disease can be transmitted by handling cover the flesh with bacon slices or contents do not contaminate the the carcass in a garage or shed, or by venison or coming in contact with deer chicken skin, or cook it in a covered meat. wrapping something around it. meat or blood. However, if you are container or cooking bag to keep it ❦ Wipe the body cavity until the If you have the deer processed at a concerned, many vendors now sell moist. If you skin a wild turkey, trim surfaces are clean and dry. Avoid meat plant, get to the plant as soon as shoulder length rubber or plastic gloves away and discard the large fat pad on the using water, which can promote possible to place the carcass under to wear when field dressing a deer. If the front of the breast. bacterial growth. controlled temperature conditions. For bacterium should survive in raw venison, Boning upland game birds can it would be destroyed by cooking to simplify dressing, storing and cooking. ❦ more detail on field care, transporting Cool by allowing air to circulate in and butchering deer, refer to UW- 160 degrees F (medium doneness) or You will find it easier to remove any the cavity. Extension bulletin G1598, So You Got higher temperatures. Although some pellets or bone chips from boneless meat. Finish dressing the animal or bird as A Deer. venison summer sausages may be heated And boneless cuts are easy to prepare and soon as you get home, following the tips Lyme Disease and Venison to only 145 degrees F, these products serve. Boning wild goose is an excellent in the next sections of this publication. Safety would be safe because their cooking way to prepare it for cooking, especially Dressing Venison Lyme disease is an infectious bacterial process is relatively slow and the if the bird is large. You do not have to further “bleed” a disease spread primarily by tiny ticks combined effect of longer heating times After skinning, use a sharp knife to downed deer by cutting its throat. commonly found on numerous wild at lower temperatures is sufficient to cut away the large breast muscles close to Modern ammunition and arrowheads animals, including deer. The disease is destroy any Lyme organism present. the bone. Cut off the legs and package take care of that. Remove the entrails being studied at a number of medical Dressing Upland Game Birds or separately for freezing, if you like. Then from the body cavity as soon as possible, centers in Wisconsin as well as the UW- Waterfowl simply discard the rest of the carcass especially if the deer was hit in the gut Madison departments of Entomology Check the laws on transporting without having to remove the entrails. area. Be careful not to cut into the and Food Science and the School of upland game birds and waterfowl before Refrigerate dressed birds or boneless intestines, stomach or bladder. If you Veterinary Medicine. While much field dressing them. The laws may meat for no more than 2 or 3 days, or plan on saving the heart or liver, carry a information is available about Lyme require that various body parts — head, freeze right away. clean, food-grade plastic bag with you. disease, many questions remain one wing, foot — be left attached until Dressing Small Game Animals If intestinal contents have spilled in unanswered. The following information you reach home. Skin a small game animal as soon as the body cavity or if the cavity is very relates to deer hunting and venison You can dry pluck a game bird, or possible, since it is easier to skin while bloody, use clean, dry cloths or paper processing. scald it in 150 to 155 degree F water for warm. Rabbits are easy to skin because towels to clean up. It is very important Many but not all deer ticks — also a few minutes until the feathers pull free the skin is tissue-paper thin, but a that the cavity dries out quickly. Spread called bear ticks — carry the disease- easily. If there are a great many squirrel skin is extremely tough and more apart the walls of the body cavity with a causing bacteria.