Trophy Muntjac

A trip to the supermarket can sometimes mean returning with more than I bargained for.  Such was the case this morning as I drove to Waitrose only to find this beautiful muntjac stag laying at the side of the road.  Just too good to leave, so I pulled over and stuffed it in the boot of the car.  It was not until after I returned home and had a good look at it that I realised what a fantastic animal it was.  A fully grown stag with decent antlers and sharp canines nearly 3 inches long.  They would put any dog to shame.  The only flaw was that the tip of one of the antlers had broken off.  Even so, the head was too good to discard.  

First thing I did was to weigh it out of interest.  It came to 17.7kg.  I was curious to see how much of it would be edible.  After eviscerating it, sometimes referred to as gralloched, I phoned a local game keeper friend of mine to ask his advice.  He suggested I take it around to him where he would help me by showing me how to remove the head and neck for preserving.  It's important to remove as much of the skin on the neck as possible as the whole neck as well as the head will be mounted and the taxidermist needs a little extra skin to tuck under so you don't see a raw edge.  

The skin needs to be cut quite a long way down over the shoulders to give the taxidermist enough to work with.

When he saw it he said that this was a rare find and certainly worth preserving.  You don't normally find such a good specimen in such good condition after a road accident.

Once the head and neck were removed I wrapped it in newspaper and a plastic bag to be put straight in the freezer until ready to hand it over to a taxidermist.  Meanwhile, we got the carcass skinned and cleaned up.  My friend has a cold store and very generously offered to let it hang in there for a few days.  As this was a mature animal it is likely to be a bit tough unless hung first so I was very grateful for that.  

Carcass all ready for the cold store.

4 days later I collected the carcass.  I weighed it again and this time it came to 7.7 kg so I had already lost 10kg of it's weight to the skin, guts and head.  The carcass smelled good, the meat had not spoiled, and it was reasonably dry, not dripping with blood.  After leaving a thank you gift for my friend I took it back to my kitchen for butchering.

There are many good videos on YouTube showing how to butcher deer of various sizes.  Most are American but there are a few English ones there too.  This one shows a muntjac being cut u into mainly chops and steaks.  Here is another that bones the deer out completely which I prefer as it takes less room in the freezer.  Having said that, I don't chop the haunches into steaks but freeze them boned out but whole so they can be roasted if required or cut into steaks at a later date.

Not being a trained butcher it takes me a bit longer than it does these guys in the videos.  This one took me about 3 hours in total, including vacuum packing.  I thoroughly recommend getting a vacuum sealer if you intend to do anything like this as it preserves the meat beautifully and reduces the space it all takes in the freezer.  

From this deer I obtained nearly 6 kg of meat, about 1/3rd of the original weight, fully boned out.  There would have been a bit more had I not decided to save the head and neck for the taxidermist too.  as it was there were 2 haunches, 8 mini rump steaks, 2 mini fillet steaks, 2 lovely loin fillets, 2 kg of diced venison and 600 g of mince.  Well over £100 worth of the most delicious meat you have ever tasted.  I'm so glad I found it.

17th March 2019

I finally got my muntjac head back from the Taxidermist.  He now hangs on my wall in the garden room overlooking the fields where other muntjac have been seen to pass through.