Would you eat this bull?

nmbarta

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My wife killed her first bull on Halloween, and what started as a great day ended in disappointment. Antlers are cool, but we hunt for meat.
I don't want to be wasteful, and certainly don't want to throw away an elk that took all day to get out, but I'm really struggling with feeding my family with this.

He had a really nasty infection on the bottom of his brisket, that puss was bubbling out. The wound went into the lung cavity.
As you can see, he is very skinny.
I'm afraid the infection might be throughout his body.
You can see the bright viens all over his hide, I don't know that it's related, but I've never seen hide look like this.
Not sure what to do, this sucks.
 

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First off congrats on a great bull.
Does the meat stink? I shot a good bull a few years back that had the same deal going on and it stunk something horrible. I am not talking about the old rutting bull smell, but the meat itself stunk bad. The wound was in the left quarter and looked to be a puncture from another bull, but the infection was throughout the whole body. The game warden told me it would not be harmful to eat because when you cook it, it will kill the infection. You could not even bring it in the house to process it stunk so bad so we had to throw it all out. It was not what I wanted to do, but I did what i thought was the best for me and my family.
This was the bull.
wyatt elk.jpg
 
I have left a buck laying in the woods for similar. Spotted it and shot without ever seeing it take a step. When I got to it I could smell the rot. Looked like it had been hit by a car? The entire ham on one side was open and festered. It would be a lot harder to pass on the elk meat though.
 
I already knew the answer to my own question I guess. It's really hard to throw a whole elk away.
He's really more like half an elk, I can very easily pick up both hind quarters at the same time.
Maybe I'll make dog food out of him, doubt he'll hurt our mutts any.
The meat doesn't stink, but that infection stunk really bad.
 
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