# How to transport deer



## bulloo7 (May 12, 2011)

I'm heading to family farm in southern Ohio 3 hour drive for me. If I get a deer I was thinking I would skin it, quarter it, then put it in a rubber bin with ice! My question is would it harm the meat when the ice melts and the meat sits in the water? What do you guys do? I would leave right away but I'm taking a friend with me in hopes that both of us get a deer!


----------



## M.Magis (Apr 5, 2004)

It&#8217;s best that it not contact the water, just because of bacteria. Keep the ice or the meat in trash bags.


----------



## black swamp (May 22, 2012)

If you have to use ice put it in first then meat on top but make sure your cooler can hold all of it. What I do is wrap it in sheets or some type of fabric then toss in fridge works great an soaks up all the moisture, cant remember how I came across the idea but have been doing it for years and works fine that is if you have a fridge to use anyway good luck.


----------



## FISHIN 2 (Jun 22, 2005)

Do like we do fishin, freeze a bunch of milk jugs with ice, meat will never touch water,works great. Mike


----------



## bkr43050 (Apr 5, 2004)

Buy a box of gallon ziploc storage bags to use for the meat. I still bag the the ice and put it on bottom and then put the meat in bags on top of the ice. That way everything is separated and it is easy to drain the water as well when the ice melts. Just to give you an idea I had about a 130# field dressed doe recently that we did. I think I had all of the meat in 7 one gallon bags. At the time I didn't have enough of my own ice made up so I bought a large ice bag from the store and put it on the bottom. With the meat warm it will melt the ice a fairly good amount in the first few hours so you will want to drain the water that is collected in the bottom. After a couple of days I put another bag of ice in the bottom and took what was left of the first one and put it on top of everything. It kept cold this way for several days. The deer was killed on Saturday and I didn't finish processing it until Sunday of the next weekend. Me meat was still plenty fresh and had aged at a good temperature as well. This is the way I have been doing mine for a lot of years now and it works great!


----------



## Richman (Sep 1, 2007)

Bulloo.....I process my own deer and do exactly what you are suggesting. During warm weather in the field we skin and bone out our deer and pack in a cooler with ice. Just make sure you run the bloody water off of the ice 2 xs daily and continue to add more ice. I actually even use this technique to age my deer at home during marginal hanging weather. I believe you will find it works well. I have kept deer up to 8 days using this method.

Good luck this week.


----------



## BigV (Nov 11, 2004)

I get the carcass cooled as quickly as possible. Stuff bags of ice inside the cavity and under and on top of both hind quarters. I have wrapped deer tightly in a large tarp with the body cavity filled with ice bags and kept it cool for days. I would rather transport it un-skinned then hang it in my garage for skinning and processing when I get home. At night, as long as it gets below 45 degrees, you will be fine...


----------



## buckeyebowman (Feb 24, 2012)

BigV said:


> I get the carcass cooled as quickly as possible. Stuff bags of ice inside the cavity and under and on top of both hind quarters. I have wrapped deer tightly in a large tarp with the body cavity filled with ice bags and kept it cool for days. I would rather transport it un-skinned then hang it in my garage for skinning and processing when I get home. At night, as long as it gets below 45 degrees, you will be fine...


That's exactly how my brother in law and I do it. One trip it was getting up into the low to mid 60's during the day. We checked the tarp every day to see if we needed to go get more ice. We'd open up just a big enough hole to get an arm in. It was as cold as a refrigerator in there. Lasted 3 days, we came home on the 4th day and got more ice for the trip. The deer ate just fine.


----------



## VitalShot (Feb 10, 2012)

bkr43050 said:


> Buy a box of gallon ziploc storage bags to use for the meat. I still bag the the ice and put it on bottom and then put the meat in bags on top of the ice. That way everything is separated and it is easy to drain the water as well when the ice melts. Just to give you an idea I had about a 130# field dressed doe recently that we did. I think I had all of the meat in 7 one gallon bags. At the time I didn't have enough of my own ice made up so I bought a large ice bag from the store and put it on the bottom. With the meat warm it will melt the ice a fairly good amount in the first few hours so you will want to drain the water that is collected in the bottom. After a couple of days I put another bag of ice in the bottom and took what was left of the first one and put it on top of everything. It kept cold this way for several days. The deer was killed on Saturday and I didn't finish processing it until Sunday of the next weekend. Me meat was still plenty fresh and had aged at a good temperature as well. This is the way I have been doing mine for a lot of years now and it works great!


That is how I also have done it for yrs. 


Outdoor Hub mobile, the outdoor information engine


----------



## bulloo7 (May 12, 2011)

Thank you for all the great advice! Now all I need is to find some deer!


----------

