Safe Food Handling when harvesting.

[xDom]

I got a nice clean head shot on a rabbit this morning and decided to take it home, gut it and cook it up.
I followed some you tube clips on the procedure and it went relatively smoothly for a first time attempt.

Question I have is, how pedantic are you guys when it comes to the safe food handling procedures when you're going about your business of gutting and butchering?
My wife is a chef and she's very particular on the whole safe handling process around the house yet when I see some of these guys on the internet harvesting their game, they don't appear to be too concerned with it.
Even when I was watching Meat Eater on Netflix and they were butchering up all kinds of animals, they seemed to be pretty easy going with it all?!

Maybe, I've just been over conditioned with the whole thing!

[Stix]

Dont pierce the sh1tbag & you'll be fine...

Let the meat naturally chill before fridging it...!!

No water...!!...(not until soaking time anyway...)

Age the bunny before you eat it...!!

I let em go for a good week before cook'n em now...

Make sure you cut the glands out the arse end...!!...& i pretty much remove the spine at the backside down to the hips these days...

I can send some pics later if you like or need them...

[xDom]

If I did pierce the $hitbag should I toss it?

[Stix]

Well official food safety standards would say yes...toss it...

But bunnys...i keep em on the odd occasion i do it...(assuming its minor that is-& not smearing sh1t from top to bottom every which where)...
I know someone who washes them off with a little water & hasn't had any ill effects from that in 60 something years of doing it...

Its most likely to happen if you leave the bunny a good while before you gut it so the acid will eat the lining of stomach...

Cut the meat away that the stomach contents came into contact with if you're worried...

I soak them anyway--do that in a salt brine if worried, change that out in 12-24 hrs, as well as 24 hrs thereafter in buttermilk...then a good cooking...im no food safety biologist occifer (lol), but i doubt much would survive all that...

The only thing thats really ever given me the sh1ts in regard to bunny's, is poor shooting...

[xDom]

Thanks Stix, I shot the bunny at about 5am and stuck it in the Waeco Ute fridge straight away. At about 11am I gutted it. Is this a reasonable time frame?

[sungazer]

Keeping things as clean as you can is always going to be the best practice. But in reality most germs are killed in the cooking. I only harvest for food Roo and Deer both of those I try and gut in the field. Then i bring them back to the shed I subscribe to the school of skinning the animal getting the meat to cool as quickly as possible. I will then if possible cut it to say hind leg size for ageing for a week in temps of 2-4 deg. The outer bark nearly always gets cut off and given to the dog so the meat is always in a process of becoming cleaner at each stage of the butchering.

To be honest when skinning and cleaning out remaining guts and stuff it can get a bit of dirt on it. I put a plastic tarp down under the hanging animal sometimes a piece drops sometimes I have to put it on the ground. and the skin can always make contact with the outside as I wrestle with the job.

[Stix]

xDom...
If you stuck it in the fridge thats fine mate...even if you didnt it would still be fine..

I usually gut as i go, or if theres heaps around, gut every 10 mins to half hour--or every half dozen...then i leave the bodies skin on in a breathable bag out of the sun.
The only reason i dont always gut immediately is i just prefer to not have the animal moving & twitching while im doing it...
Ive got i vid on my phone from a year or 2 back where id taken the head off a bunny with the 204, was in the process of gutting it 15-20 mins later & must have hit a nerve with the knife & its back leg started moving for the next 10 mins--its was as funny as it was freaky...a dead, headless gutless bunny on its back on my tailgate trying to get away... ...eeeooww

Im not going to argue with food safe standards or what sungazer said about getting a carcass chilled as quick as possible...thats right//not wrong & maybe i should do it...

But Im a believer in letting a dead animal chill naturally...

If you shoot a bunny (any animal) , gut it & let it cool for 10 or so mins...then knock the skin off, remove all other offal down to bare meat carcass & hang it--even on a hot day--say 38 degrees--(in shade & keeping flies off it of course), the meat will naturally chill down to (what feels like) fridge temps...it will reach a certain low temp then rise again eventually coming back up to ambient temp...even if you do it an hour after killing...its at this naturally chilled point being the longest time i ideally want them out of the fridge...

Now i dont know if its placebo effect, but ive always had better results in letting meat go through this natural chilling process rather than force chilling it...although, as sungazer says, the aging in fridge is i think the most important step...!!!

I Had super quality veal rack that was killed, chilled, packed, transported in one day (to me) & i was cooking half of a rack 3 days later...it was utter crap....like eating a tyre...
I left the other half in the fridge for a month...yep...a month...& that was one of the best pieces of cow ive ever eaten...!!...

[marksman]

nice advice for you so far
the only thing I will add is that I prefer to gut as soon as I can
because, they are lighter to carry, you are not going to carry around a gut shot rabbit,
and anything that eats grass if left not gutted too long the grass ferments in the gut and can taint the meat
with deer l like to gut within 20-30 minutes of shooting
like Stix I soak my bunnies to get the blood out that takes the game taste away

[xDom]

Thanks everyone. I spoke to a few guys at work today and they all said they gut em soon after shooting, then skin them later at home. They all describe using that tactic of flicking the rabbit around by the legs to send the guts flying, really quick and efficient.
I mentioned the split $hitbag situation and they all pretty much said its nothing to be concerned about.