Depends on how long you wait. I wouldn't let it sit for more than 24 hrs in the fridge without dressing it. Once you remove the skin and organs the cleaned carcass can sit in the fridge for a few weeks at a minimum before you have to freeze it. If you want to keep the fur on it needs to be frozen or dry persevered as soon as you get it off the animal.
Quote from: Spacebus on December 07, 2022, 04:18:39 PMDepends on how long you wait. I wouldn't let it sit for more than 24 hrs in the fridge without dressing it. Once you remove the skin and organs the cleaned carcass can sit in the fridge for a few weeks at a minimum before you have to freeze it. If you want to keep the fur on it needs to be frozen or dry persevered as soon as you get it off the animal.Again, food safety guideline from a restaurant worker: I wouldn't go more than a week under refrigeration, processed or not. It would be kind of weird to have dead tree rats in my fridge staring back at me for five days, but my guess is that they would be safe as long as they got to refrigerator temperature within four hours of being harvested. That's entirely your risk to take, of course.
I have left undressed squirrels in the freezer for a couple of days before skinning. The results are usually less than great. They are harder to skin and I generally feed these to the dogs. Warming the carcass up in a bucket of hot water makes them more pliable and easier to clean. I generally dress squirrels in the field and I carry a gallon zip-lock bag with me hunting for this purpose. I was taught to skin a squirrel quickly after shooting and to remove the organs and especially the glands as these will taint the flavor of the meat
Quote from: Blowpipe Sam on December 11, 2022, 11:52:48 AMI have left undressed squirrels in the freezer for a couple of days before skinning. The results are usually less than great. They are harder to skin and I generally feed these to the dogs. Warming the carcass up in a bucket of hot water makes them more pliable and easier to clean. I generally dress squirrels in the field and I carry a gallon zip-lock bag with me hunting for this purpose. I was taught to skin a squirrel quickly after shooting and to remove the organs and especially the glands as these will taint the flavor of the meatI usually don't have too many problems with skinning cold/near frozen animals, but I've never tried skinning one that is frozen solid. The pine squirrels I hunt are too small to skin out in the bush, at least not if I'm trying to keep the pelt as nice as possible. I try to get them cold as quickly as possible and then skin them when I get home.