How do hang your deer and why

I always wonder why some people hang their deer from the head. I have always hung them from the back legs to allow blood to drain away from the meat. Just wondering what others do and why.

I always hang from head so blood can drain ,

I also always skin mine right away ,way easer to get skin off ,and let meat cool off better

Hang mine from the hind legs. Any heat in the chest cavity can rise unobstructed. Easier to wipe the inside of chest with a dish rag to clean up any mess and it's in the correct position to strip off the hide. I don't have to do the flip it over to process thing. Back straps and tenderloins removed 1st, then front legs, neck, Cut off rib cage, split pelvis, and cut up hind 1/4's and done.

If I have a gambrel I hang them from the feet. If not a rope around th neck. Don't know about the blood draining, but from the head I find it easier to wash out the chest cavity.

The most important thing is to get the hide off as soon as possible to cool the carcass. Especially in warmer weather. As mentioned, they skin easier warm.

Seen both ways. Seen a bag of ice in chest cavity, handy for cocktails whilst discussing the hunt.

By the head here,our hunt club Willow Creek Hunt Club ESTB 1942 has always hung deer that way.At one time there were as many as 32 members,now we are down to 8 people with 3 being kids,things have really changed in the last 10 years,the orignals members have left this world behind,sure miss them each season.

I hang mine by the head to age then turn it head down to quarter and begin processing.

At home
While still hot.
I hang(on my fur skinning power gambral by the back legs. Skin, cut the front sholders off, take out the loins,then cut off the hams.Put the peices in a fridge.To butcher the next day
NO I do not normaly gut them.
Our deer are very small. 90# is a huge deer..Most are 40-60#

I've never hung deer or elk. I skin and quarter right away, where it lays.

head with a rope, throw rope over tree branch and pull rope with atv. Can adjust level as you go. Cut 4 legs off at knees, drop guts in mineral lick tub, split from pelvis upto neck, ring around neck below the hanging rope. Skin down 3-4" down neck make slice and tie second rope and hook to another atv and pull skin off gutted and delegged deer. Break down 4 quarter, remove loins neck meat and another rib meat - done.

Hind legs on a gambrel. Easier for me to skin. The cut off loins, front quarters and the separate the rears.

Hung with a gambrel from the hind legs.

you who hang with a gambrel inverted - how do you skin them - by hand? I read easier to skin but have a hard time thinking its quicker than my use of machinery.....just wondering

I hang mine from the ceiling because the ground is too dirty.

By hand. Start both hind legs, then grab and pull. Much easier if its warm. Frozen really sucks. I try not to use a knife at all until I get to the neck. I tan the hides and really hate knife marks/cuts.

Blood drains just fine hanging from the back legs or I'd never have to put buckets under the heads. The work flows I'm skinning and butchering with head down for me
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Head generally, under a shed roof but not always. No need worrying about quick cooling with the temps up here what they are. I hang it for an average of 5 days or so. Maybe a day shorter, maybe a few days longer.
All of the above depending on wether the wolves leave us enough to shoot in this area.

Osky

I hang mine by the back legs and cut the jugular. Often it is not needed since I usually use a bow and the deer often bleeds out. If it is cool enough out, I will let it hang overnight then quarter it and hang the quarters in my game fridge for a week. If it is too warm, I quarter it right away.

Unless I'm caping one out I hang them by the head. One thing I do to make skinning a little easier is I will spit the hide down the backbone and take it off it 2 pieces.
J

Hang em by the head unless it's going to the Taxidermist..
I can skin & split chest open to cool.. Easy to get at any quarter.

Hang em either way. I see zero reason to wash out the chest cavity unless the gutt- was punctured.
Should be very little blood after gutting. I take off the shoulders and the rest gets deboned while hanging.
No saw needed.
I take the hide off in 2 pieces unless saving a cape.
From hanging to all deboned, takes about 1/2 hour.

We hang by the rear legs using an old singletree for a gambrel after we take the hock glands off then use a Wyoming Knife to make the opening cuts about like you would a coyote to get the legs started. Another cut down the belly to the head with the WK. Work around the tail and get most of the ham exposed them two of us pull to the front shoulder then as much knife work as needed to get down to the head. Cut off the head, split the breast bone and pelvis, open up and drop the innards. Rinse down with a hose and let drain before either hanging in a cooler to age or quarter it to age in a cooler with ice.

If we are serious about getting it done, my son and I can weigh the whole deer, put on gambrel, skin, gut and rinse in around 7 minutes. We hunt mostly close to home and can get them out of the woods pretty quick so we do not field dress. My skinning pole fits in my hitch receiver on my truck. We do it on my concrete driveway with the outside lights on the end of the house if it is dark and a hose at the ready. Makes for quick clean up when done.

I also made my skinning pole so it will swivel 360 degrees so I could swing the carcass into the back of the truck easily if I was having to do it without any help.

Tail gate of a truck seems about right for me. I don't gut til I'm done. I split down the back and down the outside of each leg. Peel the hide off the tenderloins and take them out, Peel off one side and lift the front shoulder and hind quarter. Then roll over on hide and do the other side. Then I will take hatchet or machete and lift one side of ribs off, and have tub under edge of tail gate and roll guts into it. Then take out the catfish tenderloin (best part of deer). Then process carcass for dog food.

We have a walk in cooler next to the skinning shed. I hang deer from the rear legs and wash thorough. This cleans the gut cavity and greatly cools the meet. In the cooler, I hang for no more than two weeks.

I bring most all my meet.

I like to leave the hide on for aging. If too warm skin and wrap with cheese cloth.
Otherwise, with no fat layer like domestics, they dry out while aging.
Was taught this way by folks born pre-refrigeration,
Best venison I've eaten. I like beef aged also.

always from the feet
you don't see butchers hanging anything from the head

I hang mine by the back legs on a gambrel. I skin it right away by using a 1/8" cable with a loop around the base of the tail and pull the hide off with my ATV. The only preparation prior to pulling the hide off is to cut off the legs below the first joints and slit each leg open so the hide will be removed from each leg unhindered. Nice thing about this method of skinning, it hardly leaves any hair and is quick and easy.

hung by the head , it is easy and requires no special equipment just a line over tree limb as well as being fast so we aren't burning day light hunting hours. there are more deer to shoot while we can see.


once they have been shot , throat cut , heart lungs and all intestines and organs removed , we just don't hang them long enough that any blood that is left is going to leave the meat , it will be frozen in short time most years.

we quarter and de-bone soon as they are cold and hunting is over for the day, then pack in bags in coolers for the trip home. finish processing and packing at home.

I am about wore out with 3 deer a night after doing drives all day.

X2 for deer

The head and hide come off together at the end to separate from meat . Bagged and ready for transport.



Elk always quarter in the field


Also on a side note , a dead animal's heart will not pump any blood ....no need to cut throat

they are not always dead that is when we cut , also that cut makes pulling the wind pipe out easy so sometimes it is done for that , we seldom get anything worth mounting , just meat hunters.

Roger that !

never gut one. skin and quarter at same time and your done .

Some of us eat the liver and heart.

If you do not gut, how do you remove filets?
Learn on here all the time.

And the tenderloins, and make scrapple out of the rib cages. When I'm done processing a deer there's nothing but a clean pile of bones left.

Make a small cut behind last rib and you can peel them out with your fingers.

Hanging them by the head helps keep the antlers out of the way....

Not saying it is right, but this is how I do it. Gives my coyote setup double duty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-Wdwjlu9mY
I think I will try this.

Not a big fan of that. Guts out quick = cool off quick. I also don't like the slash marks he puts in the meat on the hind qtrs. He cuts through a lot of hair on the legs and head opening cuts as well.

Don't mean to be picky but just not crazy about his method.

To me that's just down to sloppy knife work.

I've always hung from the back legs, nowadays I hang right after shooting, I keep a small self locking block and tackle, and my tools in my pack. skin and debone, meat goes in game bags, into the pack frame and away I go to find another one. No gutting, the filets can be gotten out with a small cut behind the ribs, you want the heart and liver? quick cut and they're yours, You can do this on the ground too, just split the skin down the back and back of legs and lay it open and you have a clean surface to work on.
Whole job takes me 30 minutes tops, I age the meat in a cooler if I want.

The days of wrestling rigored, half froze deer are over

There must be a reason they always hang beef by the hind legs. Hanging beef by the hind legs is good enough for me to hang my deer by the hind legs

They probably don't want a stray dog coming along and eating the better part of both hind qtrs. LOL That's what happened to me when I was a kid, hung by back legs ever since. LOL

I gut my deer immediately and roll it over to get rid of excess blood. I prop the stomach cavity open to allow as much cooling as possible. As soon as I get home I hang the deer by the hind legs and skin immediately.I remove the back straps and tenderloins, then the four quarters. All go in a refrig to immediately cool down< I cut up the next day and I do not believe in hanging them for days at a time.

50-60#?!? I know it's Jersey but may be time to change management practices.

I hang them by the "rear" back legs (as apposed to the "front" shoulders )
I skin them before I gut them. Hung by the hind legs, the guts end up in the chest cavity, therefor the inner loins are easy to get to once you remove the flanks in that area.
I then de-bone the entire deer while it is hanging. Shoulders first, then backstraps, then neck roast.The hams are separated by individual muscles. Once you become familiar with how they are arranged on the legs, it goes pretty fast.
As far as aging goes, the meat goes in the refrigerator until my wife starts to have a full-on conniption fit about no room for all of her wine. Completely de-boned meat does not take up anywhere near as much space as quarters. The meat will age just the same as it does outside, and I don't have to fret about warm spells.
My favorite part of this method is never having to go shoulder deep into guts. In fact, I do not even have to touch them at all.

Skin in cut up right away, tastes much better, I used to hang them couple days, strong taste to meat

Gut in the woods, skin immediately when you get him home, still warm if possible, let them hang for a week or so, it just makes meat more tender. If it freezes so much the better, the easiest time to cut it it's when it's half froze.

Hanging from the head allows things to flow out easier when gutting. Out west, we butcher using the “gutless method” and pack the deer or elk out of the mountains on our backs so there isn’t any hanging. It pays to have horses or know someone who does...

There sure is a lot of diffent in opinions on how to do a deer.

i think they are all wrong.

I am quite sure that with a few exceptions, it actually matters very little, especially which direction the deer is hung.

I hang from the head Then I remove the hind quarters then the loins an back straps then the front quarters.

exactly how i do it beav.

Taste wise I think it Matters very little. But I do believe if you hang the deer from its hind legs that the meat groups are much easier to take apart. If you go into a deer processing plant I can almost guarantee they don’t hang them by their head and de bone them.

As I said above, I hang mine from the hind legs. If I hang from the head, the hind quarters are barely off the floor in my garage. I don't want to work bending over. Hung from the hind legs, the deer is at a more comfortable working height.

In high school, I worked at a meat market that processed 2500 deer in 3 weeks every year. All deer were hung, after skinning, by 1 hind leg. All breaking down took place on tables, with saws. That was 20 plus years ago.

Skinning was done with a ceiling mounted winch in a tall shop.

if you are de-boning the hind quarters on animal I agree

if you are making quarters to send in to a table where they are de-boned head up is easier because you are looking down into the pelvic joint and only the weight of the 1/4 is on the joint you can get the knife down into the cartilage twist and pop the hip joint out by lifting the 1/4 by the tendon for a good hold.

big deer , small deer , one person , team , 1 deer or several deer , warm or cold, sending to a butcher or processing yourself all changes the operation some.
if I was one person , shooting 1 deer then done for the season and de-boning it on carcass it would get hung using my 1 gambrel and come along.

but when multiple people and multiple deer. where we can back the truck up to meat pole and have a few people to pull everyone has a 25-30 foot line in their truck and can quick grab it to hang their deer , by the head is just fast and easy , most of our lines have a loop tied in one end any way slip the loop over the head and pull. we can have 3 deer in the tree while the old guys hit the head and fill up on coffee there is hunting to get back too.

likewise when breaking them down just into 1/4s re-hanging them is just extra work and time no need to wear yourself out if you have more than 1 deer to do.

I use a knife and cut off the front legs at the knee and the head off at the first vertbra. I then go a little below the rear knees and skin past the tendons to expose them, so I can hang the deer by them. I then skin the deer from the rear legs down.

Keith

learned decades ago that hanging in a cooler dries out the outer inch of meat
sooooooo,
...VV


like Newt and 653,

neither do I, what a waste of time and mess--gutting
hang from neck and skin
cut off hind quarters and backstrap
shop or saw spine tween shoulders, dropping body cavity into wash/keg tub (to be dumped later off bridge to attract CATFISH)
cut of front quarters and neck meat
tie skeleton to a tree to attract yotes, possums , etc.

I hang by back legs for week or so depending on weather. A fey years ago I started to cut my sirloins like above. Ya get three nice ones per hind plus a nice hock for soup. They are great for grilling, frying, slicing for jerky, cut and grind or can etc. Goes fast and lots of ways to use it, keeps options open.

I take one out when I take out canning meat to thaw, that way if I need a few more chunks to fill the last jar I just take them off the sirloin and grill or fry the rest whole for supper that night.

Trapset do you trim the meat up any or eat just like in the picture? What about the saw does it cause any small bone fragments to get stuck in the meat?

I shoot and let it be for about an hour. Drag ungutted deer and hang by the head, dropping guts in a garbage can. Then I back my truck under it and let it down into my truck bed. Then I grab my checkbook and head to the deer processor. Easy peasy and more time for trapping. I have cut up hundreds of deer in my life and my time is too valuable.

I have a friend that insists on doing everything the hardest way possible, for deer, they gut, take home, hang from the rear legs and skin 2-5 days later when it's half frozen, then he debones and spends hours trimming and cutting up, after he does 3 or 4 he gets disgusted and gives whats left to some latinos that used to work for him.

Me, quick bone out in woods without gutting, quick cut up into meal size chunks and vacuum pack. I only finish cutting when I open the next vacuum pack and cooking. takes just a couple minutes each spread out over months instead of obsessing over the whole thing at once...

It's just a deer, and I'm going to eat it, it doesn't have to look like it came out of a gourmet butcher shop. It still looks way better then it does after you eat it...

I always gut them before dragging out and we can’t quarter our deer . They have to be checked in at a reporting station. I always take them to a processor in Greenwich NY they debone, no talo or hair and vacuum seal it . They make snack sticks,sausage and smoked roast. I pick it up and it is already frozen. Just put it in the freezer.

Pretty much just season and grill or fry as is in Pic. Might trim a little fat off if frying, don't really bother with it when grilling.

I cut to the bone with a long sharp knife and then cut bone with bone saw or sawsall. I don't notice any fragments, that cant be brushed off anyway.

never wash the meat first way of spoiling meat the dried blood will not effect anything both ways are correct by the feet is easier for butchering but by the head redusses the hair on the meat

I always hang mine from the hind legs.Much easier for me to skin that way.

Seeing this thread reminds me of something from the Fall - a guy I know pickeup up a crossbow this year for the first time and I said "Hey, if you get a deer give me a call and I will help cut it up." I got to his house and the deer was hanging in the tree with a big game gambel but.... he had it suspended from the front legs! Some how he inserted it through the knees. I told him I had never seen anything like that before.

X2

that is the way I do it and never thought about another way.

By there hind legs.

Me too. Hang by hind legs, gut and skin then I hang it for a day or two and cut it into the best pieces as I like to cook them. Backstraps, filet mignon, boned legs and shoulders and all the trim. I understand the gutless method if you're in the field, but with these little deer I have here I can bring them back to the house easily.

Pete

Head down
skin
wash w/cold salt water (those plastic scrub pads really get the hair off)
remove meat from bones
make burger, steaks/roasts, jerky and sausages

Always give him a fair trial first

Head down

Exactly how we have always done it too.

By the neck until dead.

Not often. It takes 6 to 8 years to get a tag anymore. We had a super high deer population and three bad winter in a row. They first year I bet the population dropped 50% and the next two years didn't help them.

Head down.

You will need to start your own thread.
The topic is deer, not democrats...

I do them both ways . Those of you that hang from the head if you make a cut in front of the ears and around the neck , work the hide down a little then place the noose around the neck to hang it . The ears make a great anchor for the rope that you hook to watever power you might use to pull skin if you use power . the rope will never slip past the ears no matter how hard you pull

My family always did their own butchering and hung head down so the carcus could bleed downward as the dispatch wound would be the head or in the rib cages. Next cut to the neck.

Before I pull them up very high, I carve out some skin around the anus and tie it off so that when the rib cage is split all the innards come out at once. My elders didnt have access to lick tubes, but they sure do work nearly to catch everything

From the neck until dead. (or maybe after they're dead) Usually for stealing corn or trespassing !!!!!!!!!!!!!


upside down to skin

One thing you don't want to do , hang it in a garage overnight right after a hunt. Friend of mine did that , came out next morning to finish the task , found the garage floor just crawling with ticks and fleas.

Lot of ticks and fleas on the deer here. Lyme disease is common too.

are you sure those aint coyotes?

I hang mine up by hand legs.Skin it and then quarter it up and hang in my walking cooler.