Thread: Processing game to avoid food poisoning

The faster you get the guts out the better. The less you spread the guts on the meat the better. The cooler you can keep it the better. The less it touches other things the better. The drier you keep it the better.

Me personally, I just carry anything (rabbit through to deer) home with the skin on. Others will prefer to do otherwise, but for me, I like that it keeps the meat that is under the skin, clean. When you cut up the animal, just trim off any nasties, if you really want to keep it hygienic, keep some hot water handy to wash your knife when it gets nasties or fur on it.

It won't hurt to do some practice runs on one or two rabbits that you don't want to eat. Then when you want to do it for real, you don't have to figure it out as you go.

You can't go too far wrong cutting up an animal, remember you don't have to put it back together after you take it apart. It's easy enough to learn you're own ways of doing it just by having a go, the worst that can happen is that you produce quite a bit of 'stewing steak' from the good cuts, but the meat is free anyway, so it's not the end of the world.