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I used to work in a minimum security prison and often took calls from the game department letting us know there was a new roadkill deer that we could come get. The guy who supervised the inmate kitchen crew would take a couple of the guys out, scrape the deer up off the road, and bring it back to the prison to be butchered....presumably to end up in that night's spaghetti (or whatever).
I kind of agree that most of the roadkill I see is pretty mangled and doesn't look too appetizing. And I wouldn't eat raccoon or 'possum or someone's pet cat (the most likely roadkill around here) anyway.
I think I'd have to be pretty darn hungry to eat something off the road.
Yeah, but I am very fussy, and most of it is either deer or moose. These must be very fresh kills, and usualy I see it happen. If I didn't see it happen in general it's not worth my time.
I will take very dead fur bearers however, but I am after the fur, and the bones mainly.
Deer ticks are around in low numbers, so I take precautions for them. The first thing say, a fox gets is sunk in a 5 gallon+ bucket of water with a skin coat of K-1. This kills vermin, and the vermin float to the top, dead.
I use the bones for tools, jewelry ( ie toe bones all cleaned and lined up make nice white chokers)
I will take sinew for sewwing, and the brains for tanning the hides.
There is no other materials as nice as brain tanned hides fur on or not. Nothing else man can make is that nice IMO.
My buddy in Michigan hit a big buck on his way to work (1st day of deer season to add humor to it all), he went back after work and found it a few yards from the road.
I'm not ashamed to say that I ate some.
Closest thing for me?
I hacked a 'coon tail from roadkill and used the hair to tie some fly fishing lures.
If I hit it, or the car in front of me did, yes. If I come upon it lying there, I don't know how long ago it was killed, how many microbes have worked their way from the internal organs into the meat, what else has scented it and is heading towards us to dine...so, no.
We were driving the back road to show our daughter and her fiancee the dam. A beautiful buck leapt out in front of us, and I schmacked him good with the L fender. He got up and ran off the road. While DH and daughter got out to look at the vehicle damage, her finacee and I went to track the deer. The lil devil had leapt two fences and was hanging out with his woman - it looked for all the world like he was bragging! As fiancee and I went back to the car, he said, "Well, I didn't want him to suffer! I guess he isn't!" and showed me the buck knife he had concealed in his pocket (we had just met him and he didn't know if I was a tree-hugger yet). I laughed and showed him the buck knife I had concealed in my jacket pocket before we left the car - because I didn't know if HE was a tree-hugger yet, either! I always carry a knife for just such emergencies, and was glad to know that he did the same. We did have to replace the headlight, though.
If I hit it, or the car in front of me did, yes. If I come upon it lying there, I don't know how long ago it was killed, how many microbes have worked their way from the internal organs into the meat, what else has scented it and is heading towards us to dine...so, no.
We were driving the back road to show our daughter and her fiancee the dam. A beautiful buck leapt out in front of us, and I schmacked him good with the L fender. He got up and ran off the road. While DH and daughter got out to look at the vehicle damage, her finacee and I went to track the deer. The lil devil had leapt two fences and was hanging out with his woman - it looked for all the world like he was bragging! As fiancee and I went back to the car, he said, "Well, I didn't want him to suffer! I guess he isn't!" and showed me the buck knife he had concealed in his pocket (we had just met him and he didn't know if I was a tree-hugger yet). I laughed and showed him the buck knife I had concealed in my jacket pocket before we left the car - because I didn't know if HE was a tree-hugger yet, either! I always carry a knife for just such emergencies, and was glad to know that he did the same. We did have to replace the headlight, though.
Has anyone here ever eaten roadkill they've found? Most of us come across it quite often.
I know a few people that have done it but I'm not one of them. I suppose as a means of self-sufficiency and preparedness it'd be another arrow in your survival quiver.
I don't imagine there's not too many dead animals you couldn't eat. An endless supply of protein.
I have never eaten roadkill but I have recycled it and then eaten the recycled protein. Back in the 70's I drove 40 miles each way to work. When I would come upon a dead animal I would throw it in the back of my truck and take it home.
Every spring I bought 150 day old meat chickens. I didn't even pen them up and they just ran loose out in the back couple of acres. They had a nice house back there and they didn't wander off very far.
When I got home with the road kill I would just throw it by the chicken feeder. Most times when I would go down to lock them in their house for the night the road kill would just be little scraps of fur. I really didn't feed these birds much but they still managed to grow to 12 pound birds in around 16 weeks.
So at the end of 16 weeks I would have around 130 nice, big really excellent eating chickens. There was a real back to the land family living just up the mountain from me and the old man would come down, get all my chickens and take them home. A couple of days later he would bring them back cleaned and frozen. He charged me $1 a bird and was very happy for the extra $$$.
A friend of mine who lived a couple of miles from me also scooped up all the road kill he came across. He had a 10 acre cold water spring fed lake. It was about 15 feet deep on average. His dad had installed many metal poles in the bottom of the lake that stuck out of the water about 5 feet. They had a sharpened end with a little stop below the point. Wayne would row out to these spikes and impale his road kill on the points. The maggots that would result from this would fall in the water and get gobbled up by the thousands of speckled trout that lived in the lake. He used to take a few hundred pounds of trout out of there every year.
I had another neighbour who had a variation on this same theme. His family had been doing this for 3 generations that he knew of. They had this big old cast boiler. 40 gallons at least. They would throw all the road kill they could get into this pot plus all the groundhogs and rabbits they could shoot and course fish they netted from the river that crossed their place. They boiled them right down till they were dry. Bones fur and all.
They then fed this meal to chickens and pigs. Old Jim used to tell me, I wouldn't eat roadkill or rabbits, groundhogs or suckers but I don't mind turning them into something I like to eat!!
When I lived on LI there was a road we nicknamed "kill road" because of the number of roadkill deer you would see driving down it.
On two occasions we came across deer still warm to the touch in the dead of winter. Darn straight we took them home and got what we could out of them!!!
When I lived on LI there was a road we nicknamed "kill road" because of the number of roadkill deer you would see driving down it.
On two occasions we came across deer still warm to the touch in the dead of winter. Darn straight we took them home and got what we could out of them!!!
It really bothers me to see road killed deer go to waste. In many areas of Ontario we have a programme where the ministy of natural resources goes and picks them up. They then give them to whatever native reservations are close by. The natives make good use of them. I especially like the things they make from the deer skins they obtain through this programme.
I haven't tried one that I came across but will bring one home if it is something I killed (deer, turkey etc.).
I never believe in wasting food, thus if the item is fresh & edible.... I see nothing wrong in consuming it.
As to the flavor... if you are a skilled cook.... ...
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