Processing a Road-killed Deer: Who'll Eat the Dregs?

Early one morning a friend called to ask if I'd help process a deer. He had to get going. On his way to work he noticed a deer dead on the edge of a road that wasn't there the night before. He stopped, found it still warm, and brought it home. When I arrived, the deer was hanging, skinned, head down, from a tree limb. In less than 20 minutes we had the internal organs, the skin, the four quarters, thorax, back, and head in plastic bags and my friend was on his way to work. His family processed the front and hind quarters and I took the rest home.

It took all day to process the organs, remove/grind the meat and other parts, boil the bones and package the suet. We froze half the fresh meat in small packages, the other half as hot sausage ready for batches of soup. Most of that remaining we boiled in a large pot. After removing the boiled meat from bones, we separated the damaged portions and parts we didn't care to eat and froze them in plastic containers for our dog. Our cat wouldn't touch it!  The good parts we ground, added spices, formed into patties and transformed it into jerky in the dehydrator. We have yet to clean and process the hide, now frozen in the garage. 

Raw Suet For Birds Who Don't Eat Seeds

Food for Woodpeckers and Nuthatches: Rendered Suet

That left the digestive tract including stomachs filled with chewed corn kernels. Since the soil was thoroughly frozen, burying would take too much work. In years past, I've noticed that remains of dead animals quickly disappear and wondered who ate them. I placed the few pounds of stomachs and entrails next to the head on the ground in view of the trail camera. It didn't take long for crows to find the food stash. Besides a daily sniff by our dog, the camera captured many animals like cats, rabbits and an opossum that were just passing by but it took a few weeks until a fox and, few hours later, a coyote took them away. These weeks were quite cold with only a few hours above freezing, not long enough for items to thaw or decompose. Note the time stamp and temperature noted on the photos below.

The Camera Captured Many, Many Thousands of Crow Images

A Gray Tabby Feral Cat That Walked by Often

The Trail Camera Mounted on the Tree to the Right of the Deer Parts

A White-footed Feral Cat Walking by but not Even Sniffing

A Fox Just Checking It Out, Then Running Away

Mr. Gray Tabby

A Rabbit That Walked By Often

More Crows

Our Dog Belle Running Away Because I'm Calling Her

Mr. Cat

Another Crow

And Another

Rabbit on Alert 

An Opossum Walking By

Crows and Pheasant Sharing a Meal

A Fox Checking It Out

The Fox Worrying About Coyotes

The Fox Pacing After Nibbling Some Morsels

Another Bite!

A Coyote Shows Up

Looks Good Enough to Eat

I'd Better Grab it!

And Take It Where There Is No Camera

One Second Later: It's Gone!

Now Where Are We Going to Get Breakfast?

What Smells! There Have Been Many Different Animals Here!

Final thoughts: every bit of this animal is becoming part of another animal. This deer was hit by a vehicle that broke its backbone. We wondered why blood dripped from both its ears and mouth because it was hit on the side. I found out as I placed its head on the kitchen counter: an odd shaped copper mass fell out: a 45 caliber law-enforcement hollow-point hand gun slug that had expanded into a six-pointed star. The animal probably had been writhing, unable to get up. The entrance and exit holes did not bleed and were covered by hair.

45 Caliber Slug That Dropped on Counter