how to butcher a deer head

[sabertooth]

I got this young buck I butchered last night and I have left the head intact.

I wanted to know how to remove the brain easily and without loosing any.

[RawZi]

    I'm so jealous  I would love to try deer brain, but I don't know anything about butchering.

[djr_81]

I skinned the top of the cranium. Then used a 2.5 pound mini-sledge to crack the side of it. Pulled the pieces of bone off and scooped the brain out with my hand. Not the best method for presentation but I got it all with minimum effort.
If you were going for a bit cleaner removal maybe use a chisel and a 16oz hammer to tap a crack around the perimeter and lift off the top of the skull in one piece.
My experience was the brain was much softer than other brains I've seen so was hard to keep the natural form.

[sabertooth]

I have it chilling on the back deck, I have a chisel and a hammer I guess I will try to chip off a big hole in the tom and dig right in, yum,

[Neone]

I used a small hatchet..
Make a cut on each side, just inside where the horns are, then one at the front and back of the top of the skull..  Its just going to take a few heads until you've got an idea where the brain is..
After you make your cuts you can kind of pry open the skull top.. If you cut the right area it will pop off and the top of the brain is in there. Its inside a kind of sack thing so you take your fingers and use them to loosen the sack from the wall of the skull. there will be cord things from the back of the brain into the neck, and the some through the bottom. Use your knife or fingers to sever them and you can pretty much scoop the brain out whole in the sack.

Now laugh at how small animals brains are.

We're not sure yet if the brain has something in it like adrenal glands where adrenal glands from something large like a moose will kind of mess you up if you eat too much at once. Mabye the pituarity or hyperthalamus have a bunch of hormones where you might not want a big chunk of them at once.. just something to keep in mind.

and if you havent already, you cut the tongue out from the fleshy area between the two jaw bones, underneath.  Skin it off and start drawing your knife along the inside edges of the jaw from front to back and chopping away untill you have it loose back as far as you can go and then cut it off from there.

[Neone]

oh, and you can take your knife and cut away its eyelids, then stick your knife in the eye socket and start cutting away around the eye, until you can pry it out a little bit, then grab it and pull it out more so you can cut off the stuff thats sticking it to the brain and you have yourself some eyeballs, which i usually dried with the blood since they're not the most edible when its from a bigger animal but if you're hungry knock yourself out.

[sabertooth]

I still have the eyes in the sockets, so are they good eattin or what

[djr_81]

I still have the eyes in the sockets, so are they good eattin or what

I didn't enjoy them much. I'd eat them again though so as to not waste them.
They don't have much taste. The texture was unappetizing for me. Very stiff outer membrane with very thin/runny pocket inside. In the runny stuff there was something which reminded me of a partially cooked lentil. The rest of the eye was chewy/rubbery. All-in-all not a favorite.

[yon yonson]

i've had cow eye before. the trick is to just puncture the eye without letting everything shoot out and then sucking the contents out. it's salty and yes, there is like a hard gelatinous thing in there (spherical i think). not sure what it is exactly but i ate it. i didn't eat the eye 'pouch', just sucked out the juices

[sabertooth]

Ok, so I will try to juice the eyes, got it