Photo: Bob Takeo shares a fantastic idea for utilizing every scrap of your deer, even the silver muscle-lining tissue.
Last season, I was home when my son returned from a successful deer hunting trip.
My family processes our own venison, so I decided to stick around to help out.
As we were taking care of the meat, I was about to toss a fistful of silver tissue (muscle linings) into the discard pail. Some hunters call this material silverfish.
My son stopped me and said, “Wait, don’t throw that stuff away. We can use it.”
“But this junk will clog up our grinder,” I said.
“No,” he replied, “I’ve found something useful we can use silver skins for that will make our dogs VERY happy.”
My son took all of the scraps, rinsed them, patted them dry and placed them on trays, then slid them into his dehydrator machine.
It’s the same type of dehydrator used to make homemade venison jerky.
Within a few hours, we had free doggie treats!
If you don’t have time to make the treats right away, simply freeze the scraps and pull them out the next time you make jerky, or make it a project for a rainy day.
And if you are like me and enjoy seeing every bit of the animals we harvest go to good use, this is yet another way to do so.
Nothing goes to waste!
— Photo Courtesy of Tim H. Martin
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