@Davesport not just the highlands, you cant move for them where i am in essex - probably because so much of the land where they hang around is near to housing so its not safe to shoot them there.
Personally, I’d be wary of handling a deer carcass. With the whole Lyme disease issue, that’s a clear health and safety snafu.
Nah, it's not an issue. Lyme is a tick issue (More folk get ticks from walking and from pets) so as long as you check yourself for ticks yer fine.
Thanks for the heads up on the Giving up the Game FB page, I’ve just joined it.
To the OP, I love it, in my top 3 of favourite meats. Years ago I was told to treat it like you would lamb when it came to cooking it and I’ve never been disappointed with the outcomes following that advice.
Sadly, I’m unlikely to be in a position to try sourcing my own, as that means going through the FAC application which is getting tougher and stalking is no longer a reason by itself reading my application for a shotgun. I do have bows, which would do the job, but is highly illegal.
What would help, in a few areas, is a wild population of lynx but that’s a long way off yet.
There was talk of doing exactly this at Kielder forest a couple of years ago, pretty sure it got a fair bit of support, obvs the local sheep farmers were not keen but not sure whether it's still under consideration. Venison is probably my favourite meat at the minute and most of the major supermarkets sell it these days, most of it from New Zealand ffs, surely it can't be cheaper and easier to source meat from the other side of the planet when the UK is overrun with deer
stalking is no longer a reason by itself
Stalking absolutely is a reason on it's own.
You don't even need a permission to shoot on as paid days out is enough to obtain an FAC (you need to show proof of booking in some instances.
FAC application which is getting tougher and stalking is no longer a reason by itself reading my application for a shotgun
Stalking is a reason for an FAC. You cannot shoot a deer with a shotgun, at all, apart from humane despatch of course. Getting permission on some ground is the hardest thing of all.
FAC?
Fire arms certificate?
Doh, of course. As you were.
FAC is short for Firearm certificate, the license to own rifle
Brads, Porter-Jamie, just reread the notes, and yes you both are correct, I misread.
You could push the leaness factor, always some group claiming fat is bad, and venison has none. The healthier choice.
I personally find it a little 'Gamey' for my tastes, I know the older generation and others dont like a plate full of blood(yes I know its not really blood)I always seem to need to overcook it though i prefer beef to be rarish. In sausage and meatball format, due to its lack of fat it can tend to be a bit on the dry side.
Im not sure how people would take the management of slaughter for venison. Its understood for all that the main 3 are dispatched in a slaughterhouse, but venison is a free roaming animal and nobody is really aware of how it gets from hill to plate, certainly not the usual routes, and that lack of knowledge lends rise to animal charity groups setting forth myths about that side of the industry.
In your average general city butchers, venison isnt high on the supply list. The customer knows its there but theres never been a great call for it outside of xmas or new year. I suppose now, with less butchers shops, many are pushing the specialist outlet for their shop, priced to match, but I dont think without having the meat federation behind it its ever going to get into the publics shopping lists as a staple over lamb,beef or pork.
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A favourite use of mine for venison burgers is to fold them around something like a frozen chunk of garlic butter or some other sauce(cheese is nice), as its stickiness(from the lack of fat) kind of waterproofs it a bit and it sauce doesnt leak out all over the baking tray.
I make up filled burgers, wrapped in smoked streaky bacon, wrapped in foil for the oven, off for the last 10 mins to crisp the bacon.
Seemed too miss this when first posted.
But we love eating venison at home, we go through phases of it being our most consumed meat. To the point it is our toddlers favourite meat!
Over the last few years I've bought them whole from a local estate (Scottish borders) then butchered them myself at home and stored in the freezer. As stated above this way works out rather cheap (£30 for a whole carcass - which equated to about 8-10kg of meat).
Easy to end up with a mix of steaks, roasts, mince and dice and shanks. Then just substitute mince/dice into things that may have used beef or lamb (bolognaise, chilli).
For steaks or roasts cooking is a little different to beef, but there are plenty of great recipes online or books around about it.
Reminds me its time to get one again...
Regarding it being dry - yep, agreed it can be if you roast something like a haunch whole. There's little fat in it to keep the meat moist. What I've found works best:
- Steaks / loin - cooked like beef steaks, seared and pink in the middle etc.
- Mince - chilli, bolognaise, lasagne etc are all great
- Haunch - I usually split down into the main muscle groups and cut steaks, but best way to cook whole is to butterfly, marinade and barbie (keeping it pink in the middle)
- Shanks - slow cooked in stews - meat falls off the bone. There are some great recipes for moroccan lamb shanks that work equally well with venison. Lovely!
- Burgers - with a bit of pork shoulder to add fat, or some spicy chorizo (adds fat and you can still leave the burgers a bit pink).
- Sausages - been making some great venison meguez. 2/3 venison, 1/3 belly pork / back fat and using a mix from Weshenfelder. Huge hit with anyone who's tried them
- Stews - diced is great in stews. Favourite is spiced venison with chocolate https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/spiced-braised-venison-chilli-chocolate
Bumpity bump.
In the interests of reducing overgrazing, does anyone know of a butcher who can get wild venison in Rochdale/Bury?
Sounds from above like slow cooker/ninja is the answer?
I love venison.
If hunting with bow was allowed i would like to hunt my own.
In the interests of reducing overgrazing
This doesn't make sense.
Venison sourced from wild herds sustains the degraded an unnatural uplands we have in the UK....?
You’ve lost me a bit - surely the point as per the Guardian a while back is that reducing wild deer numbers reduces overgrazing, and seeing as we haven’t got any wolves…
You’ve lost me a bit – surely the point as per the Guardian a while back is that reducing wild deer numbers reduces overgrazing
In the highlands several estates deliberately keep the population higher than would be naturally sustainable in order to ensure the best hunting experience aka being able to basically guarantee a kill rather than spending a couple of days seeing nothing but midges.
Several estates? IIRC the deer population is Scotland is 10x the sustainable level hence a lot of them are malnourished and are regressing to smaller animals.
a lot of them are malnourished and are regressing to smaller animals.
So getting stuck into the venison burgers is good for the general deer population then?
Venison sourced from wild herds sustains the degraded an unnatural uplands we have in the UK….?
Haven't we now decided (and designated accordingly) that the barren upland landscapes that sheep and deer cause are what we expect and want to see in tbe countryside? So the argument now is a welfare one, keeping deer populations controlled so we don't see starving ones?
@dashed i thought about this thread after someone posted about a cull on the Hebrides on my holiday thread. whats the going rate £/kg at the dealers these days? Since posting 2 years ago we went on a butchery course locally. it was quite good, and we were taught a much better way of skinning. Had a 52kg in the fur buck the other day which was hard work. Trying to get the freezer full before the end of the season.
As an aside I'm thinking of doing dsc1 to educate myself more about the whole thing. Trying some of the online training and the hard bit for me is trying to identify gender and species from a crappy photo with no context! I'm not sure i want to actually do the stalking part, its a lot of work dragging them off the field and you need lots of equipment and so on. I'm certainly not into trophy hunting or paying 1000s to bag a stag and then let someone else gralloch it. Probably stick with the amateur butchering for now.
God I'm hungry now. Already had this week's meat... got to find venison for next week, for sure. Maybe game pie...
Venison sourced from wild herds sustains the degraded an unnatural uplands we have in the UK….?
Not if the deer are culled back low enough. Glen Feshie has regenerated without fencing because of a big cut in deer numbers.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2022/feb/14/cairngorms-valley-scotland-rewilding-holiday
http://www.richardbanes.com/?page_id=125
An ex's father was a reindeer herder across Norway/Finmark. Chernobyl buggered that but I've still eaten enough venison to never want any more.
Stalking? If you can shoot fine. If you can't get in the sea.
I've 650gms(about 1.4lbs) of sirloin in the piece, to do a roll for the oven, possibly tonight 😀 Yum.
When I trim and roll it it should be a bit over the pound.
Just realised how old this threadcis. I may have replied before..
Just got off the train to Ash (Surrey) and saw four groups of 4 muntjac. All within 100yds of housing estates, if it wasn't a Patrick's Day travellers wake in my local they'd all be in freezers by midnight...
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/17/deer-destroying-habitats-venison-uk-food-banks
Be interesting to see how the FSA advice (don't eat lead shot stuff) is navigated in this latest drive.
The only time it pisses me off is when the bloke at work who does it doesn't bring me any back.
Be interesting to see how the FSA advice (don’t eat lead shot stuff) is navigated in this latest drive.
Non lead rifle ammunition is widely available and used by many deer stalkers.
Venison sausages with about 5% pork are ****ing devine.
Hard to get venison here despite it being gorgeous.
Needs to be made easier. Overgrazing is causing massive environmental damage.
I tried venison stalking once. Bit like shooting fish in a barrel...
I’d be really interested in your views on venison – have you tried it, did you like it, if not why not, what would influence you to buy it in future, would you know where to buy it, would you actively seek it out or is it an impulse buy, do you have an understanding of the process from field to plate? Those sort of general issues.
I appreciate that there will be folk who find the whole thing distasteful and don’t eat meat etc. I fully respect that view but I’d like to try and solicit the views of folk who eat other types of meat but not venison if possible.
Thanks in advance.
I love venison but it's too expensive for me because the local butchers "see me coming". They sell skinned rabbit for £10! I ain't buying that. I can buy a small/medium free range or corn fed or organic chicken for that. I also like pheasants but again they "see me coming" so I ain't buying.
Yes, tried venison many times and cooked them Chinese style with ginger, spring onion stir fried. With right preparation and recipe this is very delicious.
I will buy them whenever the price is right as often as I can because it's a beef substitute for me.
Therefore, the more the better but must be at the right price.
Oh ya ... I don't buy meat that's specifically killed for me. i.e. as in I order the animal to be slaughtered for my consumption. If they are available for general public I will buy at the right price. Also, I don't consume beast of burden hence I don't eat beef often.
I love meat but I really dislike strong flavoured stuff...I also don't like undercooked so no pink for me. I like venison but depends on how it is cooked and how strong the flavour is - which isn't great as it is hit and miss, so I don't eat it often.
How many do you want? You could sit at my kitchen table and pick off a few - we have a herd of about 15 next to us. There’s at least 2 deer for every person here so no one would notice a couple. The taste of the meat means it does limit your menu, but venison and black pudding sausages are nice.
They look badly photoshopped, lawn is a state too.
😉
I'll say what I've said for years: while red deer are an area if our economy that many rely on for income, and important culturally to many, I think we need to find a way to shoot well over half the deer (roe as well) in Scotland. This is on environmental grounds, and opens up new income opportunity around nature tourism.
How we get there, I've no idea.
https://www.scotlandbigpicture.com/
Some of the estates have done it - deer density varies hugely and IIRC Feshie is one - and oddly enough deer do not seem to move in to the vacant areas quickly as feared and in Feshie the trees are regenerating
Feshie has a zero tolerance approach to deer numbers and will despatch a guy with a gun if one is spotted. Feshie is also part of the Cairngorms Connect project, which covers many estates, all of whom are minimising deer numbers. It's just a shame that the likes of Balmoral won't co-operate as once you get over into Deeside and Angus the numbers of deer are much higher.
Haven’t replied before but I like venison. There is a venison ‘farm’ near us outside Brecon and I will pick up mince or chunks for curry if I am passing or if I fancy a cycle ride. I used apostrophes as the deer are very free roaming, more so than sheep or cattle but they are not wild. I’d happily buy and eat rabbit, I’ve had squirrels in the past when I used to shoot. Ok but a lot of faff. I was happier taking the carcasses to the local bird of prey centre.
I like venison but depends on how it is cooked and how strong the flavour is – which isn’t great as it is hit and miss, so I don’t eat it often.
Using the right marinate the flavour is minimum like beef which I prefer.
Rabbit, squirrel are fine with me too.
It's all about price for me because I ain't paying gourmet price.
I do a bit of stalking in and amongst and enjoy a bit of venison. One of the reasons the deer population has flourished to such levels in Scotland is because a lot of estates (and farms) relied on visiting recreational stalkers. Many English stalkers would hold a share on the sporting lease for various parcels of Scottish land, paying reasonable money to do so. This is especially true for Roe Deer.
Red Deer stalking on commercial estates is a bit of a different story, and best left here.
The various lockdowns meant there were very few deer taken over the last few years, and the boom in the population was/is starting to tell.
There's a very broad spectrum of issues at play across the whole piece. I'm not convinced there are any one-size-fits-all solutions, but many estates now employ contractors to clear Roe from Forestry as land-use diversifies. Game dealers are offering a pittance for venison, as it's coming into them in industrial amounts.
All I can say is if you know anyone who shoots deer, get yourself a chest freezer and learn to butcher a carcass. Go on the various Game sites on FB and bid for the meat. Make sure the person selling or giving it to you has a deer-management certificate or game meat hygiene qualification, otherwise you might as well be buying roadkill.....
In the next few years we expect to see a complete ban on lead projectiles for Deer, but commercial contractors and forestry deer-managers will, in all probability, already have made the switch.
