Hi William,

Thanks for the email and your thoughts.

Like you, I prefer venison cut boneless. Bone-in venison certainly does have a stronger, gamey flavor.

Yes, having the perfect slaughter and processing arrangements would be great. Most meat shop coolers are controlled with both humidity and temperature. Humidity will help keep the carcass from drying out too rapidly. A low temperature will help slow any bacteria growth.

I see you are in a beautiful area of Canada. I am not as familiar with the food handling regulations of your area. I can speak about those I am familiar with.

Food regulations vary by country and by state. Here are a few USA food handling challenges, in general.

Most USA meat cutters have so many deer to process during deer season – and they are dealing with meat for holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years and a busy fall-time beef processing schedule - rarely do they have room in their coolers to hang deer for any amount of time. At this time of year, they often convert any spare coolers they have into space for hams, turkeys or beef.

Another challenge may be finding a meat shop with a cooler specifically set up for hanging deer. My meat shop was state inspected and licensed. I had coolers for beef and pork, one for poultry and two specifically for deer. I could not hang a deer carcass in the cooler with the beef and pork or with chicken and poultry.

Because of space, food regulations and costs, few meat shops have coolers specifically for aging a deer.

Good Luck and Great Hunting!

Marty Prokop
www.free-deer-hunting-tips.com