Precautions for Hunters Dressing Deer

Safely Field Dress Your Harvest

Wildlife diseases are increasingly common in Vermont. These diseases can spread to humans—but much risk is preventable with some simple steps. To help control the spread of wildlife diseases, hunters and trappers should be especially careful to protect themselves when processing game. You can protect yourself from exposure to several diseases by following these steps:

• Do not shoot, handle, or consume any animal that is acting abnormally or appears sick.
• When field-dressing game, wear disposable gloves, start with a clean knife, and minimize the use of a bone saw to cut through the brain or spinal cord (backbone).
• If you do not have gloves, wash hands and arms thoroughly with soap and water after field dressing.
• Minimize contact with brain or spinal cord tissues, eyes, spleen, or lymph nodes while field dressing.
• Avoid consuming brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils, pancreas, and lymph nodes of harvested animals. Normal field dressing, coupled with boning out a carcass, will remove most, if not all, of these body parts. Cutting away all fatty tissue will remove remaining lymph nodes.
• Refrain from eating, drinking, and smoking while handling and field dressing game.
• Always wash hands and instruments thoroughly after field dressing and processing game meat.
• Disinfect knives, saws and cutting table surfaces by soaking in a solution of 50 percent unscented household bleach and 50 percent water for an hour. Thoroughly rinse all utensils in water to remove the bleach. Afterward, allow them to air dry.
• Wear disposable gloves when processing and packaging the meat.