Andrew Maclaren's thread put me in mind of asking this (since I didn't pay attention to it at the time). His was about the skinning shed.

The field dressing process I use on whitetail where, from trachea to alimentary canal's end, including excising the diaphragm, via a longitudinal slit all interior contents are removed for draining and cooling.

In the Eastern Cape (at Blaauwkrantz Safaris) I saw a much abbreviated process that truly was fast and looked easy. What they called a "gut" involved some sort of short slit below the rib cage, whereafter the tracker/helper simply reached inside the lower abdomen wall, rolled out the stomach through lower intestine + internal sexual apparatus and almost pulled / tore each end appart.

In other words, everything above the diaphragm was left inside [heart/lungs/etc.] and the only knife cut I saw was that little skin incision. when I am done with field dressing I can NOT wipe my little knife off on the grass and use a few swishes out of a gallon water jug and be done!

Can anyone enlighten me/us about the process? As at the skinning / processing shed, all I saw was people using a short, plastic handled knife that looked like five bucks would have been too much to buy it. With this they worked their magic, be it with plains game or the domestic animals they processed in a separate but adjoining facility.

Thanks

BNagel

I don't think there is much "field dressing" in Africa as a great deal of what most whitetail hunters leave in the field are consumed by people in Africa. I remember in 05 they had to take the stomachs out so it was light enought to load on the truck. The PH said be careful with those as I want them myself. He would clean them and prepare them for his consumption.

Right. What I want to learn is how to do it African style, but I was too busy getting camera, rifle and clothing re-situated in the bakkie to observe what the tracker actually did.

BNagel

basic african gutting - give knife to tracker, tracker cuts open the belly, tracker digs in with both arms up to his chest and pulls everything out. hunter watches

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
basic african gutting - give knife to tracker, tracker cuts open the belly, tracker digs in with both arms up to his chest and pulls everything out. hunter watches

LOL...That is the way I do it.

I have been asked how do you skin an Elephant? My answer is,I don't I just watch.

This isn't African related-but I saw a (Canadian)federal meat inspector field dressing an animal. He did the same thing, removed everything behind the diaphragm then he removed the lungs and heart. His point was to get the "guts" out as quickly as possible n order to avoid possible contamination. I haven't adopted the idea yet although it does make sense to me.

the chef

So...


... if I make a small slit from past where you would make the cut for caping, then roll the NON-GUT-SHOT contents on the grass, I too could simply pull hard on either end of what comes out, without any knife cuts, and the ends snap off? Seems like the lower end could give pause. Still think I missed part of the "gut" process, because I sure do have to cut a lot to free the interior contents.

BNagel

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Looks like he (Nceba / "Morris") went in the side?

BNagel

quote:

Originally posted by BNagel:
So...


... if I make a small slit from past where you would make the cut for caping, then roll the NON-GUT-SHOT contents on the grass, I too could simply pull hard on either end of what comes out, without any knife cuts, and the ends snap off? Seems like the lower end could give pause. Still think I missed part of the "gut" process, because I sure do have to cut a lot to free the interior contents.

BNagel

I have read this original posting a few days ago, and intended making a detailed reply. As I had the pleasure of making my first kill of the year yesterday morning, while gutting my first springbok of 2007 I thought about the question again.

BNagel, you are quite correct in what should be done to do a South African ‘gutting’.

Why do we generally do it different in South Africa? The big intestine is the fermentation sack of the animals - here quite smelly gasses are produced. If the blood stops circulating [like by the death of the animal] the fermentation continues for some time, and the dissolved smelly gasses are no longer removed by the circulating blood. These gasses are breathed out. [Ever smell the breath of a cow�] That is why the stomach is removed as soon as possible after an animal is shot! This I believe holds true wherever one hunts. The lungs, heart and liver are mostly eaten by skinners or other assistants in South Africa. These are difficult to transport without soiling them if they have been removed from the carcass. If these organs are lift in place, they do not become soiled during transport. And besides, then the people who are going to eat the organs get themselves bloodied in the process of removing the organs.

If an animal was shot through both lungs, there is very little to be gained by bleeding it artificially. When shooting purely for meat I sometimes, when quite sure of my ability, take headshots. In these cases I would field dress like BNagel has described, as the removal of the heart greatly aids letting all the blood out of the carcass.

But for a normal lung-shot animal simple gutting is enough field care. I would advise a slit from sternum to end of gut, against bone of pelvis; no need to work in a confined space! For males, cut on both sides of the penis to leave the end where urine will not spill on your meat. Remember that on bigger animals like kudu or gemsbok it is quite a process to get the stomach out! I find it easier to make a long cut, and remove the small intestines first, it leaves more space for manhandling the stomach. Leave the kidneys where they are. Sometimes, not always, and I don’t know why sometimes not, gentle pressure on the full bladder will just about empty this other potential source of tainted meat. Be careful to leave the liver and spleen attached to the diaphragm. But simply pulling on the esophagus can cause it to snap off just in front of your hands, and then you often find that you have spilled a lot of stomach juices onto your otherwise clean meat!

Rather than just breaking it off, I would advise to make a very careful circular cut around the esophagus – just through the reddish muscle of the organ a bit above the stomach. Then, using your knife very carefully, scrape the muscle back to both sides of the cut so that section of about two inches of the esophagus is only the whitish inner part of the organ. It is then quite easy to push the upper part of the stomach closer so that you can twist the part around your one finger and make a small loop, to securely grip the esophagus with the loop still around one finger. The inner esophagus is much less slippery than the outer, and it is easier to pinch off the pipe properly. Only then do you actually cut through the esophagus on the head side of where you are securely holding the esophagus to prevent stomach content from spilling. It is the quite easy to make a simple knot in this section of the esophagus. The knot will slip if you do not first strip off the muscle from the sinewy esophagus itself.

Then for the anus end of things: Reach into what, would be called the ‘birth canal’ in females, as far as you can. Pinch off the colon, and pull the already hard and formed droppings towards the stomach a bit. Then carefully work all the droppings to the wrong [head] end by a ‘milking type’ action up to the point where the colon is no longer fatty. Cut it off there, and leave the fatty colon, now stripped of droppings, in the animal’s carcass. In general the kidneys are left intact and not removed with the rest.

For my skinners’ sake I also strip the fatty covering that surrounds the stomach itself off and leave that for them too. This stripping is done as soon as the small intestines are out and there is some space around the stomach. If there is a good grass cover where you do the gutting, you can just first remove the whole stomach, and then remove the fatty covering. Small pieces of this fatty tissue are wrapped around cut pieces of liver before frying these delicious, but high cholesterol, tidbits.

The colon, or as it is known in Afrikaans “vetderm†[fat gut] is used to make the delicious [ but very bad cholesterol bomb for those with high cholesterol] locally known as a “pofadder†[puffadder]. The colon is removed, washed thoroughly, inverted – inside out – and stuffed with pieces of liver, and whatever else of the internal organs you like, such as pieces of spleen, kidneys, heart, some crushed garlic and all manner of other spicing. The sausage is then grilled slowly. Delicious if properly done!

If you have gutted an animal properly, your hands will smell a bit like the body cavity, but there is almost no blood whatsoever.

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren.

Wow! Where else but AR would someone like Mr. McLaren bother to give such a thorough reply?

Thank you, sir. I knew it was different.

(I liked the "before" of my boesbok the best.)

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BNagel

I have eaten "puffadder" and can tell you, that is some mighty fine eating,no joke.

Geronimo

I read all posts with interest because I never field dressed any large animal other than a white tail. However I do know something about that and it seems to me that the people in Africa are simply quicker in field dressing and more bolder because they have warm temperatures and an bunch of hands to help with the animal -and most important of all, maybe African animals don't wear their skin as closely as a white tail does. Anyone who has ever field dressed a white tail knows that the very first cut made with the knife must be very careful to cut not too deep (so as not to cut in so deep as to cut into the intestines at the lower end of the cut -or a lot of pounds of meat can be spoiled) In my state of NY a buck had to be dressed out as to leave "evidence of sex". (Yeah, I know he had horns but that was the law anyway)so that made field dressing a more delicate exercise than it should have been. I think most Eastern deer hunters will agree with me that they never bothered to reach up and pull out the lungs when they didn't have the long rubber gloves that later generations used. Blood up to my elbows in 25 degree temps and still a long ways from the car at 4 in the afternoon was never my idea of field dressing!

Nice Bushbuck BN!

Thanks, guys.

Geronomo, a friend says the best thing she ever ate was a Cajun-style all day cooking affair -- stuffed cow stomach. I'm a "cuts only" type.

gerrys375, if I have time on my hands (Texas has the too hot problem) and a little water I can stay mostly clean. Usually there's a rush to get to camp before sunset or lunchtime.

L. David Keith, if you only knew how sweet the sound of that 'Klap!' was to me when I knew it was a good shot...

BNagel

quote:

Originally posted by J P Baker:

I have been asked how do you skin an Elephant? My answer is,I don't I just watch.

I have about a hour of video and a couple hundred photos on skinning an elephant or two, gutting it, and chopping it up.

It ain't pretty!

Hi Guys

Its not just Africa where we 'gut' the animal in the field. Here in the UK its quite common to just make a cut up to the rib cage and remove the stomach, intestines, liver and kidneys. Then turn the beast over into what would appear a lying down position to let the abdomen bleed out. Return the liver and kidney to the carcass and then take the beast to a more convenient place to do a proper field dressing.
This technique IMHO prevents a lot of rubbish getting into the carcass and keeps things neater and cleaner. Everytrhing else can be removed where there is better light, running water and a hoist.

Mark

Gutting a springbok during a voorsit shoot usually takes me about 2 minutes:

Buck lying on back: Slit from sternum to behind scrotum, careful not the puncture the stomach.

Buck on side, reach in and drag out the guts.
Reach in and grasp the top of the stomach, cut off the stomach, pinching it shut. drag it out, tearing or cutting all the connective tissue as you go. Reach in again, grab the colon pinching it shut and slice it off behinf the anus. Any connective tissue and vessels then get sliced through.

Turn the buck over to dump the blood accumulation, and drape him over a bush. Cool decoy!!!

Actually it is very difficult to describe as the actions become so automatic because you want to get back to shooting. I timed a coloured farm labourer at 45 seconds start to finish.