Rrad thread.
What’s a good way to remove ticks from a deer? High pressure water doesn’t seem to work. Are they supposed to be picked off one by one?
Vaseline’s meant to work pretty well - cover them up so they can’t breathe, and they drop off cleanly.
I suspect a blob of fat or something might work just as well? Anyone tried it?
Don’t bother trying to remove ticks from a deer. Skin it, and start tanning the hide. The ticks will bail out and go some where else or die on the hide while you are tanning it. I tan 100 -200 deer hides a year and they all have ticks. I’ve been living in the woods most of my life and tanning deer for 25 years, had lots of ticks crawling on me, never got a serious bite. Just pay attention, if you feel something, remove it.
Don’t buy into fear.
THanks for the info.
The vaseline sounds like a good idea, we tried rubbing alcohol and the ticks became motionless and flatter than usual, they were easy to pick off with tweezers once they could not cling to the body. There were so many, I pulled off at least 25.
Not removing the ticks sounds good too. It sounds like the ticks would bail, but the skinner would most likely become the next host? I guess you’re right, I should just watch to see if any are crawling on me and remove them, throwing them into a bucket of water worked well for me, I guess I dont have much compassion for parasites…
THANKS EVERYONE.
“There were so many, I pulled off at least 25.”
That’s pretty typical, 100 is not uncommon.
I was cutting up a mule deer once in Sept. The yellow jackets were swarming all over me so bad that I put a sheet of plastic on our kitchen floor and brought it inside. I got busy and when I looked over at the head it looked like it was moving! It was all the ticks.
The “mayday” alert had gone out and they were all abandoning ship! :o
Really, honestly, don’t worry about them, just pay attention.
i like the hair pull test on the belly. anything sitting in warm temps for more than 12 hours i’d leave it. i can be pick in my area. a rule i go by… spring summer and fall i won’t take stuff after 1 pm due to heat. another good thing to check is to push on the animals belly a bit. if blood comes out the anus this usually means the guts have busted. aside from tainting the meat this also effects the amount of work needed in order to obtain the meat. with busted guts you might need to cut out and not eat a little bit or a lot of the meat. the tenderloins are right near a lot of organs so these are out usually. it can also get messier and real stinky. tanning can be effected too with all those juices working on the hide.
just some stuff i’ve done.
i’ve usually avoided maggots for fear of rot but i guess i’v been wrong. where were the maggots? how many? was the meat already exposed when you got to the animal?
thanks