Greetings;
For those of you who know, I have just gotten into hunting but don't have a whole lot of experience - particularly concerning small game. The only part I enjoy more than the experience of being in the woods pursuing prey is actually eating it. This leads me to my current dilemma. I recently stared using a 12 gauge shotgun (before today I've always used a .22).
Well, a rabbit jumped literally inches from beneath my feet and was followed by a series of shotgun blasts. The first shot penetrated towards the bottom half of the critter, where as the second shot took his head clean off.
As a consistent .22 hunter, I'm used sinking consecutive head shots or bagging relatively clean kills. When I went to gut this particular animal (immediately after I shot it), I noticed that the meat had some gritty brownish matter coatings some of it. I then realized that some of the shot apparently penetrated the intestines or something, releasing fecal matter into stomach area of the rabbit. None of it had broken or anything, the excrement was pretty much intact and came out easily.
I took it home and after field dressing it and washed it in the sink for about fifteen minutes and seeing if I missed anything. The carcass is now sitting in my refrigerator.
I was talking to someone about this today and they explained to me that the meat would NOT be safe to eat? Is this true? Did I just ruin some rabbit's day for no good reason?
Say it ain't so!
For those of you who know, I have just gotten into hunting but don't have a whole lot of experience - particularly concerning small game. The only part I enjoy more than the experience of being in the woods pursuing prey is actually eating it. This leads me to my current dilemma. I recently stared using a 12 gauge shotgun (before today I've always used a .22).
Well, a rabbit jumped literally inches from beneath my feet and was followed by a series of shotgun blasts. The first shot penetrated towards the bottom half of the critter, where as the second shot took his head clean off.
As a consistent .22 hunter, I'm used sinking consecutive head shots or bagging relatively clean kills. When I went to gut this particular animal (immediately after I shot it), I noticed that the meat had some gritty brownish matter coatings some of it. I then realized that some of the shot apparently penetrated the intestines or something, releasing fecal matter into stomach area of the rabbit. None of it had broken or anything, the excrement was pretty much intact and came out easily.
I took it home and after field dressing it and washed it in the sink for about fifteen minutes and seeing if I missed anything. The carcass is now sitting in my refrigerator.
I was talking to someone about this today and they explained to me that the meat would NOT be safe to eat? Is this true? Did I just ruin some rabbit's day for no good reason?
Say it ain't so!