Eating dead stuff from the garden

Jonny69

Jonny69

Jonny69

Man of Honour
Man of Honour
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Kapitalist Republik of Surrey
There's a dead wood pigeon in the garden. Looks fresh. Wound on one side. Eyes nice and bright. Would you? She won't let me but I might go and gut and feather it while she's not looking.
 
Someone at my old work, did this all the time. Hit by trains though so known death.

If its fresh, why not. Althought it's hard to overcome our brainwashing from birth.
 
Not enough meat on 1 pigeon to make it worth the hassle, Pop down the Square with a net & a bag.
 
I'm not saying I would, not really into the idea of preparation (gutting, feathering etc, wimp!). But I'm sure it would be perfectly ok to eat and being wild it would have had a very varied/natural diet so more than likely it would make for very tasty eating!
 
Depends on how fresh it is, ive shot woodies quite often, and if left out during the course of a day, (particularly if warm), they can get fly infected very quickly. One tip i picked up is to wet a hessien bag in cold water and store them in this, the mesh structure of the bag helps to keep them cool. Theyre a quite tasty bird to eat, but one would only really be a snack.
 
Don't bother drawing (gutting) a pigeon - just pluck the breast and cut the breast meat out or pull it out as a 'crown'. Lightly fry with a little bacon - yummy! I eat all of the dead wood pigeons that I find in my garden ;)
 
If I didn't know how it'd died, I wouldn't.

Yes it's got a wound on the side, but it might have been a diseased, weak one anyway which is how it managed to get caught.

On a vaguely-related side note, my other half had to kill a little bird this morning. It was on our patio with a massive gaping wound on its back and a broken leg. So he stamped on it (made me cringe) :( I won't be eating it though!
 
Plucked and butchered. That was enlightening :eek:

Doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it at all. No stink. Not sure where the scrape came from but it doesn't seem to smell infected at all and it was underneath the bird so the meat doesn't appear to be affected. I didn't gut it but I did accidentally cut into the back of the gut and it's chock full of seed and stuff that it's been eating.

The comedy thing was my downstairs neighbour just returned back after a few years away and walked in just as I was swinging the cleaver to take the feet off. I was like, er, try and ignore what I'm doing :D
 
Ahh well, it seems to be fine then. Must admit, ive also had some strange looks from the neighbours when ive been preparing game.
 
setter said:
Ahh well, it seems to be fine then. Must admit, ive also had some strange looks from the neighbours when ive been preparing game.
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I checked it over pretty well. No signs that any flies have got to it because there aren't any holes and there wasn't anything buzzing round it at all. I did plenty of sniff tests and it all smells ok.

Pics or it didn't happen :eek:

Butchered. See where I nicked the gut at the bottom of the carcass:

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The only visual damage was some grazing underneath behind the legs. It didn't seem to be infected at all and was dry with no smell:

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Cleaned up and got rid of any remnants of feathers:

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I had planned chicken pie tonight, so this is tomorrow night's dinner :)
 
poker_999 said:
yeah why not, field dressing dead animals is an important skill to learn, your not a real man unless you can do it.
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Even though the thought of it makes me cringe, I kind of agree with you and would like to have a go at conquering the fear, I live in the midst of an abundance of wild game so it wouldn't be difficult, even had a wild deer in the garden the other night, not sure I'd go that far though:eek: it looked far too beautiful to kill!
 
smit101 said:
Even though the thought of it makes me cringe, I kind of agree with you and would like to have a go at conquering the fear, I live in the midst of an abundance of wild game so it wouldn't be difficult, even had a wild deer in the garden the other night, not sure I'd go that far though :eek: it looked far too beautiful to kill!
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This is the second whole animal I've tackled. Last year Freefaller brought me a whole pheasant from a shoot his friend had been on and I decided to hang it for a week and prepare it myself because I'd been wanting to for some time. It was a humbling experience and something I've not forgot, and I respected the meat I'd prepared because I'd seen 'who' it had come from. I have to admit, tonight, I've had a stiff drink as a nerve steadier because I'm buzzing somewhat :p but it's just because I'm not used to preparing whole animals. This is also the first time I'm cooking something I've found, so I won't be eating it pink in the middle just in case, but with the pheasant I felt obliged to make a decent meal of it out of respect. It's quite a different feeling to pulling open a packet of chicken thighs, or even a whole chicken.

mithrandir said:
:D I see you've distracted your missus somehow. Do you think she'll notice after tomorrows dinner?
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Haha, she's veggie and was hiding in the bedroom! But, secretly, I think she has no problem with me eating wild food since it's technically a lot more ethical than mass produced meat :)
 
Nicely done but a massive waste of time - like I said, just breast out or crown a pigeon - there's not enough meat on the legs, wings or the rest of the body to bugger about like you have - whip the breast off/out and bin the rest ;)
 
The only thing I'd be concerned about probably is if it has no readily identifiable cause of death then potential death by toxin or poison would be a concern. Otherwise crack on looks good!
 
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