My third son had his first taste of meat tonight and loved it just like his two older brothers. The first meat tasted by all three of my boys was white tail harvested from the ranch of a great friend and fellow AR member.

I start extremely early so I don't use any seasoning, instead I completely wrap venison back strap with bacon and put it on skewers. I use charcoal with a couple pieces of pecan approximately 8"long and 2" thick. Cook to about medium to medium well, I know this is a sin, but I can't bring myself to feed a medium-rare piece of meat to a kid under one. I flip the meat 4-6 times because there will be a lot of flare ups due to the large amount of bacon grease. When done discard bacon and slice back strap into small pieces with a sharp butcher knife and then shred meat with a good knife, I really like my ulu knife for this. Freeze in meal sized portions about 2 oz.

If child isn't able to chew mix with a complimentary pureed vegetable or fruit.

Bring em up right on real meat, unadulterated meat.

you have a great way to cook BS and get the young ones or anyone else to eat venison...we have cooked it with bacon for years,but a little different...cut the BS into 1" to 2" cubes,put on skewers with the bacon weaved in and out of the cubes...cooked high above coals to reduce the flare-ups and we eat the bacon...to vary the taste we use peach,pear, or apple wood...i like to find limbs about 3" to 5" in dia. and cut them into 1" pancakes with my dewalt saw and soak them in water before use...not any better than what you are doing,just a little different

Raider2k3

You are doing it right! My daughter is 4 years-old and had been eating elk almost exclusively for quite some time. She says that her favorite meal is "elk and black rice(wild rice)".

Recently she tried antelope for the first time. She said, "dad, you did a good job cooking it. It turned into elk!"

Last night I had a late meeting at school and had to shop on the way home. By the time we were finished it was 7:30. I had thawed out a package of backstrap but as we headed home I thought to myself that it was just too late to cook. I asked my daughter if we should just stop off and grab a burger. She said, "no, lets go home and have elk!"

I guess you know that you have trained your kids right when they keep you honest!

Thanks for the support. My older boys will actually turn their noses up at beef, but they love their venison.

All 3 my kids (and lately my grandchildren) cut their teeth on venison biltong and dry wors (sort of like jerky and dried sausage). Warthog cabanossi always was (and still is) a firm favourite.

So this past Saturday morning I was cutting a wrapping the elk that my daughter and I got last week. It was about 10am when my daughter asked what I was going to make her for breakfast. I told her that I could cook up some of the elk that I was cutting(I was wrapping it in the kitchen).

She said, "Um, no thanks. It's kinda disgusting"

I cooked her pancakes, but I fried up a bit of backstrap for her also(Recipe: Season salt, olive oil, fry until done all the way through).

She ate the meat and told me that it was great. I guess the smell of cooking venison helped her to get over the butcher shop scene in the kitchen.

As she was finishing I had resumed cutting and wrapping the elk. She walked into the kitchen and said, "Daddy, I like it when you shoot animals and turn them into meat."

Gotta love that girl!

You sound like a good man. My kids go nuts over the stuff. They haven't really experienced me doing any of the butcher work though. That being said when I first started bringing home meat to cut up my wife freaked out when she came out and saw me de-boning a ham on the kitchen counter. Later that season she was right next to me using my other hunting knife.