infected animal hunting Question

[rluttrell]

I was reading a thread where the hunter talked about the leg of the pig having puss in it from pervious wound. rather than camping on his thread I just thought I would start a new one.

I am a new hunter, my question is would it be safe to eat the rest of the pig if it has a festered foot or infected leg?

[old_goat2]

I've never had this experience yet, but I've thought about it because I've known it to happen to other folks. I would "think" as long as you follow safe cooking procedures it should be safe, but I wonder about the taste. This is assuming that the rest of the critter looked healthy, if their condition looks poor then I'd probably pass. My thought is cut out the infected part and give it a try if the animal looks healthy overall.

[Mike Gerardi]

My buddy killed a buck one year that had a broadhead in it's spine. A large puss sack encased the three blade head. We just cut the meat out that was around the broadhead. That buck was healthy and showed no signs of injury prior to being harvested. We ate that buck for the next month or so without any symptoms and it tasted great. I am sure it is a case by case basis. Any time there is an injury to wild game you should be cautious imho.

[cyred4d]

If there is only one infected area you should be fine if you cut away everything from that part. If there are two or more infections I would assume the infection has traveled through the entire animal and would discard it. My .02 worth.

[Bldtrailer]

Years ago I took a buck with a very large growth on it's side (about the size of a large grape fruit) he seemed to be suffering, so I put him down and told the farmer(a friend ) why and where this buck was.  I hate to waist anything, but that deer was left on the mountain(I could not & would not risk feeding him to my family) no longer suffering.  I've never felt good about the above, but still believe it was the right thing to do.

[Izzy]

I ate a white tailed doe that was a mercy killing. She was being chewed on by a loose dog and after shooing the dog away I put the deer down.

    Upon approaching it I discovered her front leg was snapped in half. The area that the bones had protruded through was green and stunk powerful. I cut off the entire shoulder and led it there. The rest of the deer was as good as any venison Ive ever eaten.

[LittleBen]

This is an interesting question.

My concern with eating meat from an animal with a bad wound would be sepsis, or infection in the bloodstream. It's possible the bacterial content could be much higher and more dangerous than normal. However, nothing lives for long with sepsis; maybe a few days.

So chances are if the wound is very new, it's not going to be infected yet and you're good to go. If the wound is clearly older, and the animal is still alive and otherwise healthy, you're also OK. I would never eat the meat of an animal with an infected wound that looked in poor health overall. You don't wanna be contracting staph infection or something.

If we're talking survival here, I wouldn't hesitate to eat the meat of a sickened animal, BUT I would soak it in water repeatedly to draw out any bacterial toxins, AND I would cook it thoroughly to kill any living bacteria or parasites etc. I have no doubt that this would be fine in terms of health, but would probably taste like dirt.

[Zradix]

I took a buck during rifle season 5 years ago.
Watched him rubbing and scraping around for about 20 mins.
Also saw him easily jump over some fallen trees he could have just as easily walked around.

Anyway, he got close enough and I took the shot.

When I got up to him I saw he had a broken carbon shaft sorta between the shoulder and neck. Looked to be shot from an elevated position.

It was in about 4" and had a mech head on it.

There was some puss around it. about a 1" dia "hole" around the shaft that was damaged slightly puss(y) meat.

Didn't stink bad..just a little off.

The shaft pulled out really easy.
I think the deer was well on it's way to healing/pushing out the shaft.
Most likely from that years bow season which had ended about a month before this deer went down

I left the bad section alone and ate the rest up.

Good meat.

[saltwatertom]

Hmmmmmm,…. I see other experiences here, … but,….
long ago I took an elk with an infected front leg (puss pocket). We didn't harvest the bad leg/ meat and the rest of the meat tasted horrible, like it had been soaked in a cesspool. Yuck!
Like I said just my experience, but I would now hesitate to shoot anything that looked sick or had problems of some sort.

[KSdan]

My rancher friends won't eat a cow that has infection!  Answers it for me.  Coyotes and birds get a free meal and I get the PETA award for saving a couple dozen bunnies.  

[Plumber]

I feel as a hunter its my responibilty to remove this animal.( put them out of pain) I DO NOT FEEL that I have to eat it. my job has been done as a hunter by killing it.Animals are carriers of things that I am not aware of.For the safty of myself I discard the animal.

[FerretWYO]

In Texas a few years back I shot a buck that had an expandable in his shoulder. It had not really slowed him down but the infection was pretty severe. The game warden told us it need not be saved and adviced discarding the animal.

A couple years later I had a hunter take a deer that had been shot in the hind quarter with a rifle and had created an infection. Again we contacted the game Dept and were again advised not to eat the animal.

[Wiley Coyote]

I am a meat inspector and from what I saw in the picture of that thread and that is the only sign of anything out of the ordinary just remove that leg above the joint and the rest of the carcass should be okay for human consumption. It might have also looked like an abscess but could have been an arthritic joint. Same deal, remove it and the rest should be fine. Just my two cents worth.

[Caughtandhobble]

Coyotes, buzzards and worms have to eat also  

[Tav]

I really appreciate this thread. I have thought about this a lot. I always figured I would call the game and fish, have them come take a look, and get their advice; but it's really good to hear from real experiences. I think it's admirable to try to put a sick animal down even it meant using your tag up.

[Roughrider]

I would think one would have to do this on a case by case basis and look at the overall condition of the animal.  

While many people claim predators eat the sick and lame, I've generally found this NOT to be the case with animals that were very sick and feverish. We had many, many deer die here of EHD in the past two years, and very few of them were touched by the resident coyotes, racoons, possum, skunks, etc.  The only ones I saw that were chewed on were the ones in the creek, and I believe that was by turtles and crayfish.  Once the deer were pretty much decomposed and nothing more than dry hide and bones, the scavengers would scatter them around.  But, shoot a deer and leave it overnight and you may get a head and spine for your efforts.  We also had a small buck that was injured, I believe it was hit by a car, and very lame and feverish acting when I saw it.  I found it two days later laying in the edge of the creek and nothing touched it above the waterline.

I think most animals avoid eating feverish animals to prevent spread of disease - of course if the scavenger is starving, anything's fair game.  I think predators are like us and prefer fresh, healthy animals.

[RAU]

If the rest of the carcus looked good Id probably eat. I don't know I'd have to see it I guess. In Pa we can get a new tag for unfit for consumption animal but IGamve been told the Game Commision takes the whole animal antlers and all

[Hummer3T]

If you shoot an animal and think it was sick or was sick (for mercy reasons), or has an unhealthy appearance, I would tag it then call or take it into to your local CO/F and W, they can verify and will usually give you a replacement tag.

I this day and age with CWD, TB, cancers in wildlife etc. I would be cautious of any thing that appears to be sick or not right, you might not be seeing the underlying cause.

[Izzy]

Another experience comes to mind! It was a gun kill but the experience may sway you one way or another. I killed a muley buck Id been watching for some time. He would stand a while and then bed down again.

    I stalked him in his bed and shot him from archery distance. Upon getting in on him he had been shot in his hind quarter by a small cal rifle. Maggots, stink and all. I threw that hind quarter to the yotes and enjoyed some on THE finest venison Ive ever eaten.

    Im not saying you owe a wounded animal anything, but if you choose to kill one or do so unwittingly common sense should prevail. If you want the meat, do a stink test. If the rest of the "unaffected" meat doesn't stink and you want it, dig in. If you don't want it, leave it.

    Ive also killed several ducks and geese with mites that were noticeably thinner than others of their species. They were discarded without regret. Take it on a case by case basis and put common sense and the evidence at hand to the forefront and you'll be all right.