Why is bruising bad? Surly a few shotgun pellets induces bruising anyway?
I was trying to find why you need to remove the blood from an animal in general.
I can find a few reasons:
- religious - some religions (Judaism, Islam) require the blood to be removed. It appears it is mentioned in the Bible for instance.
- the appearance is better - the meat is considered less attractive with black spots in it.
- the texture is better - having the blood in it makes it less open and firmer.
- the meat will keep longer with no blood in it (I can't find out why though - I am not sure why the blood should degrade any faster than the meat, but it appears it does).
So if there was bruising, it won't look or keep as well. However, I read that you can soak it in salted water and this will remove the blood, although you are going to have to chop the thing up first - no just shove your pheasant in a bucket of water.
Normally you would bleed the animal as part of the killing process, or very shortly afterwards.
If you have run it over, it is probably dead, so you need to cut it's neck and hang it up. By the time you have driven home, it may be too late. Then you'll need to chop it up and soak it.
If wanted to hang it to get a more gamey flavour, that is obviously a disadvantage.
Obviously you can eat dead things, since when you trap things or use snares, the animal will be dead. So I guess the main thing is just how long you want to keep it.
There are other issues with running things over.
If you rupture the digestive system, the bacteria can get into the meat, which seems not to be a good idea, and also makes it harder to gut properly.
You may also have broken a load of bones and have splinters in the meat.
I am not really an expert in this stuff though, since meat comes from the supermarket.
The only things I have caught, killed, gutted and eaten myself are fish.
