Locations of Lymph Nodes in Deer

[teberle]

I'm getting ready to process a deer from a CWD zone, and thinking about precautions to take during the butchering process to avoid contamination of tools and surfaces in case it is positive. The eyes, brain and spinal column are obvious places to avoid, but I have a question about lymph nodes. Page 65 of this year's hunting regs summary had a rough diagram of lymph node locations. I know about the ones in the hind quarters, but it looks like there are a couple more in the chest or shoulder area, and some in the neck as well. Can anyone help me figure out how to locate these? Are they in the meat, or will they have been discarded during field dressing? I'd like to find them and remove them whole without cutting through them if possible. Google has been surprisingly unhelpful.

[walking buffalo]

Most of these nodes are encapsulated in the larger intramuscular fat deposits.
They will be removed when you cut out this fat.

But don't worry too much about it.

If the deer has CWD, the prions are in the meat too.
Avoiding contact with the prions is just not possible.

My suggestion is to freeze the deer in large pieces such as quarters and back until you get the test results.
This will save you time and effort and reduce possible contact with the prions if the deer tests positive.

[dshot]

Remove the lymph nodes and brain stem if you want to keep the skull for a euro mount, if it's a doe submit the whole head.


As walking buffalo stated, keep the meat in large chunks (or process however you want) until you get the test results back. You can't really avoid CWD through the butchering process. Make sure best to wear gloves and clean all your processing tools with a 50/50 bleach water mixture after.

[Lefty-Canuck]

Watch this,

https://youtu.be/IxxTjaVS4v8

LC