• Those who are experienced in the dressing of animals know it is good practice to thoroughly bleed them as soon after killing as possible.
• Animal Husbandry Departments in our colleges and all commercial meat packing plants recommend and practice the thorough bleeding of all animals and poultry, because it not only results in better appearance, but also in better keeping quality.
• Without exception, the same method of bleeding animals is used-as soon as the animals are stunned (or shot in the case of game), the jugular veins are severed so that the blood may escape quickly.
• Domestic poultry is killed and bled differently, p 1030 but since game birds are always dead or nearly so, they should be bled the same as animals by cutting the jugular vein.
• If the animal or bird is then hung up, or in the case of larger animals, placed so the head and shoulders are below the body, the blood drains very rapidly from the carcass.
• Thorough bleeding can result only when a large blood vessel is opened immediately after killing while the animal is still warm.
• In a very short time after death, the blood begins to coagulate in the vessels and any attempt to bleed the animal after this change sets in is bound to be slow and incomplete.
• This leads to the question of using for food animals that are found dead in traps.
• In most cases, marsh hare or muskrat which are trapped for their pelts, die in the trap and their pelts are removed before there is any attempt to bleed them.
• As a rule, when such animals are to be eaten, they are soaked in salt water overnight to remove the blood, and the carcasses improve greafly in appearance. However, muskrat would be much more popular if only the animals founA alive in the traps and killed and bled immediately were used for food.
• The meat is naturally dark, fine-grained and soft, and when it is not bled, these qualities are exaggerated and give many people am unfair opinion of this meat.
• The only controversy about the superior quality of thoroughly bled meat over unbled occurs when the use of unbled game birds is discussed.
• This practice is defended so strongly by some hunters that they go so far as to say that birds that are bled never have as fine a flavor as those that are not bled.
• For all other game, there is no question that thorough bleeding improves the ap-pearance, flavor, and keeping quality.
• Since a sharp knife is the only necessary tool, the modem hunter can easily bleed his kill thoroughly.
• Small game are hung up by the feet; large game can be placed on a slope so that the neck and shoulders are lower than the rest of the body and the jugular vein can be pierced in very little time and with very little trouble.