Does bleeding out virsus just gutting have anything to do with meat quality?

[RiverOtter]

Drillbit: I've seen bruising react like that, though obviously that trauma was caused premortem. Seems really odd for the hinds to have a reaction from excess blood when the fronts are the low point. Leads me to believe your issue had nothing to do with excess blood.

[finaddict]

If the animal is heart lung shot and there is significant damage to the heart muscle, then bleeding out by slitting the throat and gravity only will not be very successful. Animals that are not heart lung shot and are "dead" (either throat or head shot) will likely still have a partially functioning heart for some time. Cardiac muscle is completely different from all other muscles in the body and controlled by the Medulla Oblongata in the brain. This is in the very core of the central nervous system. So while the animal may be physically immobile and for all appearances dead, the process of death is never instantaneous. Rather, death is a series of regressive actions of function with the final action being the complete cessation of cardiac function within the central nervous system.

So out of all this blah blah blah above.... the heart can still assist in draining blood from the arteries and veins even after the animal is "dead". Would I bother to bleed a heart lung shot animal? Probably not going to be too productive, but it wont hurt either.

[blackhawk19]

the sooner you get the animal cooled down and cleaned ,the better the meat.

[Jelvis]

If you like eating or drinking blood so be it, I shoot deer with a shot to drain, heart shot, BANGO!
I don't like the taste of blood and was taught in church as a Christian, " Do not eat blood, drain the blood to the earth." God don't like people eating blood, period.
No pun intended. haha
-- ahh take a heart shot, BOOM! Zee buck will kick it's back legs out like a horse kicks back and takes off runnin for the hills, then as he runzzz tthe blood iz pumping out of his heart and as he gets lower and lower blood he drops. Now, make sure the buck iz dead, look to ssee if it's breathing or blinking, if not touch eye ball with stick, if no blinky, start to thinky, what next?
-- turn buck on back legs spread, now don't touch scent pads, then cut around anus.
and carry on my way ward son.
Summary: take heart shot, and use gravity to drain excess blood from animule. Hang chang ching a ling, one more thing, don't cut yer hand or finger.
P.S. I knew a butcher at a slaughter house that caught the blood from a dying hanging pig let in a cup and wood drink it. Hot as it gushed out. A real Bloody Mary.

[AgSilver]

At a minimum, I would expect that draining blood would expedite cooling of the meat as you then have less warm mass present. Seems to me that anything that gets any blood out will help, no?

[russm86]

My first deer.

Nice mulie buck running straight away. Shot it right in the back of the skull cap, bullet came out between the eyes. Antlers were barely hanging on.

Gutted it right there (not much blood), and hauled it to the neighbour with the meat cooler. Hung it with the tractor, and skinned it, and it was in the cooler within 40 minutes of getting shot.

After hanging for a few days in the cooler, the entire hind quarters were turning black. We thought from blood in the meat, but that was our only guess. Coyote bait.

I've shot/gutted/skinned hundreds of animals since then and have never seen that happen again. No head shots, and no throat cuts, but all body shots that bled lots.

The turning black is normal when aging meat but most butchers don't recommend aging game meat now a days anyways. They say there is no benefit, all you do is lose more meat as they trim the outside black layer off. A few days seems a little fast to age that much especially in a cooler, unless the cooler was too warm perhaps? Heat rises so perhaps that explains why only the top part was aging that quick the cold air wasn't circulating or there was a malfunction or something...

[rimfire]

It makes some sense. I know with fish that the quality of the flesh is much higher if you bleed out the fish so that may transfer over to other game too but that is all speculation on my part.

[Big Lew]

I've observed some hunters actually being quite squeamish about cutting an animal's
throat even though they were okay with the chore of gutting and skinning....maybe this
might explain why a few don't do it. Knock on wood...I've never had really gamey meat
other than when it was directly associated with what they were eating. Unless my shot
took out the lungs, heart, or liver, I'll continue to cut the jugular to assist in draining as
much blood out of the animal as possible.

[elch jager]

You really should be draining as much blood as possible out of the meat. Especially with game that is considered marginal table fare. Like the Grizzly Bear for example... and there is no better way than to cut the jugular while the heart is still beating.

[tomahawk]

Bingo!! If the heart has collapsed and quit beating nothing drains except the vein or artery you cut. Head/spine shots that result in stopping brain activity or body movement can still have heart pulsing for several mins and the animal can be bled out. Heart/lung shots create there own blood loss.

It's kind of hard to bleed out without the heart beating?? It's just a bit of a old wife's' tale! Some guys do it really has no bearing on taste.