Identifying Edible Roadkill

Two more videos, this time on preparing and cooking roadkill pigeon

There's a book called - Step on the gas, there goes lunch. The gourmet's guide to roadkill. A bumper like those used in the Australian outback helps a lot.

I absolutely love these forums for this reason. Bring a thermometer, make a small incision, in the muscle body, usually in the crease of the thigh. temperature should never be below 65, beware, a hot day can heat the meat. The body should be flexible, and learn how to identify specific organs. If the adrenal organs are ruptured, it is not a good idea to eat the animal, with mammals. I personally would never eat fowl, unless i witnessed the death. Check the skin and fur for signs of injury or infection. Specifically around the feet neck and anus. Never eat an animal that has experienced an anal prolapse.

Temperature is variable if it is cold. As long as it hasn't raised above 45 for two consecutive days, it should be safe.

Well, so far, we leave roadkill for the dog! But, I guess if I was genuinely hungry...
Actually, having said that, we did kill a pheasant that flew out in front of the car. We ate that because I knew it was fresh and the only damage was to it's head.

We have eaten several roadkill deer. But we only eat what I call "pedigreed" roadkill. Meaning, it has to be a fresh kill, either from our car or a friends car, so that we know that it was fresh. We don't eat the bruised meat. We also slit the throat as soon as we can, so that we have a good chance of a good bleed out.

awesome video's never thought of road kills as food, I've used them as compost activators, small kills of course. I once hit by accident a deer, how much that made me cry, I put her in the car trying to take her to the vet but she died after five minutes, so I went home and butchered the meat, why waste it.
The idea of cooking in the woods is what I really felt strongly watching the videos I think I'll get out there one of these days and cook something. its true outdoors it tastes different.
Thanks for sharing

chad Christopher wrote:I absolutely love these forums for this reason. Bring a thermometer, make a small incision, in the muscle body, usually in the crease of the thigh. temperature should never be below 65, beware, a hot day can heat the meat. The body should be flexible, and learn how to identify specific organs. If the adrenal organs are ruptured, it is not a good idea to eat the animal, with mammals. I personally would never eat fowl, unless i witnessed the death. Check the skin and fur for signs of injury or infection. Specifically around the feet neck and anus. Never eat an animal that has experienced an anal prolapse.

Temperature is variable if it is cold. As long as it hasn't raised above 45 for two consecutive days, it should be safe.

Why the lower limit on the body temperature?

Burra, could you please post the links to the vids as ordinary URLs? I can't see the videos.

Rose Pinder wrote:Burra, could you please post the links to the vids as ordinary URLs? I can't see the videos.

Identifying Edible Roadkill - https://youtu.be/e-YKDPJ0Iu0

Preparing Roadkill - https://youtu.be/1ADTMQeVFQs

Cooking Roadkill - https://youtu.be/fLyz3j-Vhy0

We have eaten very fresh killed pheasant before. We were walking the dog - on the way out the road was clear, on the way back there was a dead pheasant, so we knew it was fresh within 30 minutes or so.

Although I do eat roadkill (and out of dumpsters as well), I'm strongly suspicious of health advice given by someone who uses hand sanitizer.

When I was younger, we used to be on the game warden's list of people to notify when roadkilled deer were available. Sometimes we had to go pick them up, sometimes he'd drop them off at the house. The provenance was always known, someone would hit a deer and call the game warden right after they called a tow truck.

Frank - Ha - noticed the hand sanitizer. This is must-see even if for emergency / wilderness survival.

My cousin was a game warden. Along with deer and moose, he had people on a list for beef, from truck roll overs. Cattle were transported from Alberta to Ontario's corn belt for finishing. The roll overs happened on winding sections of the Trans Canada, north of the Great Lakes.

Frank Lee wrote:Although I do eat roadkill (and out of dumpsters as well), I'm strongly suspicious of health advice given by someone who uses hand sanitizer.

This stood out to me as well! Seemed odd.

I've eaten from at least 3 roadkill deer and several other of what we called "hunter scrap"----deer parts left over from hunter's leavings who only took the hams and backstraps and left the rest of the animal......
Anyone who knows about processing and "aging" meats knows that beneficial microbes and enzymes actually improve the eating quality of meat after death for a time, longer in cold weather. A whole dead animal decays primarily from the abdominal cavity...intestines, etc. and body orifices outwards.......often parts near these areas (ribs, etc.) will spoil quite a while before the outer parts (limbs) of the animal. It is also good to remember that raw meat, if it begins to spoil, will rarely kill you....provided it's well cooked. It may give you what we used to call "two bucket" in Bangladesh (where you sit on one bucket with another in front of you!) but not worse. Cooked meat, and especially canned meat, that spoils, may well prove fatal. My sense of it is that if the animal isn't bloated, and is either still warm or thoroughly cold in cold weather, and the parts desired do not smell badly upon cutting into them, it's likely safe if cooked well....

I know i am almost a month late to respond, but i use the temp of 65 because: if it is cold when you find the animal, 65 is right between decay, and safe cooling temperature. Higher than 65 is great, as long as the climatic temperatures are relevant to the tissue temps.
In instance of a deer.

So, the conditions of the environment and the deer both help determine the time between death and recovery without spoiling venison. If the air temperature is 50 degrees, we have three to six hours to recover a deer after it dies. If the temperature is higher, or the animal has elevated its temperature by running hard, then the safe time available for recovery is shorter.

Keep in mind that it is not the temperature at the time of the animals death that matters; it’s the expected temperature experienced by the carcass that matters. So if you shoot a deer at 50 degrees, but the skies are clear and you expect the temperature to fall into the high 20s that night, your deer is safer than if the temperature is 45, and it’s cloudy with an approaching warm front and the night temperatures are going to stay above 40. If the carcass is still 'warm' but all other conditions would say it should be colder, you have a better chance of the meat being safe.

This example only works for me, because i will not eat roadkill above a 65 degree day, only if i witnessed the death, or know for a fact it was not there earlier that day.

and there is a big difference between intentional bacterial preservation, and what happens in an non gutted, traumaticly killed animal.