If I kill a deer how long can the body last before preserving?
This isn't a question for a real life situation I am in, but more for a simulation that I want to be as accurate as possible.
My setting is pre-refrigeration and someone has just successfully hunted and killed a deer. Assume a spear or arrow.
I now understand that 'field dressing' a carcass is the best course of action, and the 'hunters' will know this, so assuming that is done successfully, my question is how long will the meat last if nothing else is done to it?
The setting is Scotland, summer, and about 12 degrees (Celsius) with a bit of rain, if that matters.
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Can't speak to deer. I've kept fish on canoe trips from noon one day to breakfast the next morning without a problem. I've also steamed fish, and carried the cooked fish for 36 hours without a problem. These were on trips with temperures in the mid teens (C) overnight to low 20's during the day.
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There is not a single "right" answer to this question. The body can last for much longer then you are willing to eat from it.
As a rule of thumb, maggots can start to appear within about 24 hours of the first fly landing on the body. If this causes you to stop eating, is a matter of how hungry you are.
Optimally you will start preserving (smoking) the meat as soon as practical, in most cases within 2 to 6 hours, which is about how long it should take you to get the animal back to camp/home. If you can't get back home the same day with time to start preserving, you probably want to start preserving it at the kill site.
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You could consider salt curing your meat; e.g. corning, brining, jerking, pickling, etc.
“Salt inhibits the growth of microorganisms by drawing water out of microbial cells through osmosis. Concentrations of salt up to 20% are required to kill most species of unwanted bacteria.”
“Salted meat and fish are a staple of the diet in North Africa, Southern China, Scandinavia, coastal Russia, and in the Arctic. Salted meat was a staple of the mariner's diet in the Age of Sail. It was stored in barrels, and often had to last for months spent out of sight of land.”
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In addition to @JamesJenkins' answer:
Blood and innards of a deer are removed asap*, and AFAIK the same was done in pre-fridge days: they'd probably cook + eat the organs (possibly incl. the blood) and possibly wash the gut so it can later be used to make sausages. If they have hunting dogs with them, they'd get something as well (lung, bronchi).
The abdominal cavity is preferrably left open in a way that allows it to dry - somewhat difficult in your rainy scenario (and for traditional transport which would tie the legs over a spear so two people can carry the deer).
* Nowadays, you may get it home first where the whole procedure can be done more conveniently and under more hygienic conditions unless the drive is too long. 1 h is the official limit here in Germany.For transport, the skin is left on - while this keeps the meat from cooling fast, it also guards the meat against contamination, including flies & Co.: this way, you'll only have to "guard" the abdominal cavity.
In the described scenario of a couple of days' transport, the latter consideration would probably also win - unless the carcass with skin is too heavy for transport.Nowadays, a deer is supposed to be kept in a fridge (possibly still in skin) not more than +7°C, and the appropriate aging to tenderize the meet then takes about one week (you can cut it up before that, and then either freeze the pieces or hang them again to finish the aging).
12 °C in you scenario is above that but I'd think it is quite inside the temperature range that people did consider appropriate for aging venison in pre-fridge days (and actually much later, when farm fridges did not yet have the size to keep whole cows or sheep or deer...). They'd make sure the carcass is kept dry, though - otherwise you may get mold.Flies were kept away (also later on when drying the ham or sausages) in homes in the pre-fridge day by what is called Fliegenschrank in German (I've seen some in Canada, too, but don't remember the English expression: it's a food storage cupboard that instead of glass panes has fly screen.
Maggots are not nice, but AFAIK aren't poisonous after cooking. But flies tend not to wash their feet before landing on meat, and thus spread mold and bacteria which would be of far more concern in terms of spoiling the meat - maggots are just an indicator that flies have been there. Still, few people could afford to waste food, so it would probably have gotten a thorough boil and one would have hoped that that got it back into an OKish state for eating (risk of food poisoning and the increased risk of liver cancer some decades later are traded off against starving).
My guesstimate would be:
- 2 days rain at +10 °C are probably OK, as that would also keep the flies away ;-)
- 4 days rain at +20 °C would probably mean trouble (guesstimate based on how fast flies arrive when I get cow stomach/spleen/lung/... for the dog), but
- for 4 days at 12 °C, some tissue used as fly screen and/or a tarp that keeps the rain out, or maybe giving the abdominal carcass an initial bit of smoking could make just the needed difference
Summary: assuming your hunters don't have too much trouble with the rain and flies
that the deer in your scenario may be arriving in town just perfectly aged for eating. Bon appetit.
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