Roadkill- look away vegans and vegetarians

This letter made me laugh.. when I was a girl my Dad came home with a rabbit he’d knocked down in the car. My Mum was thrilled to bits and lovingly made a stew. To say it was tougher than boots was an understatement . We decided it had died of old age rather than by Dad’s driving but eventually we discovered it was a hare, not a rabbit. Definitely put me off road kill for life!

Slightly off topic, but every time I see Camilla wearing one of her Fascinators, I think there must be a lot of roadkill to be had around Highgrove House.

Would choose meat from my local butcher, road kill, supermarket butcher counter, pre packed supermarket meat in that order

I have often eaten roadkill pheasant. We lived in the middle of rural Northumberland, and there was one road on my way home which often had deceased pheasants on it. I knew they hadn't been there long, because they weren't there on my morning run to work. I decided to do it the easy way and just peel back the skin and take the breasts and cut off the legs, discarding any bruised bits. Delicious, even just fried in some oil and butter. Why would you worry about disease or anything? Your eyes and nose will tell you if there's anything wrong. Pheasants have a nice life, living in the countryside, being fed grain by the gamekeeper as a supplement to what they forage. What is wrong with eating them if they are killed by a car as opposed to a gun?

My OH was told it was legal for the next person to take it but not if you had killed it.

My friend stopped to examine a muntjack she saw hit by a car ahead. It was dead so she took it home and looked up on YouTube how to butcher it after hanging it in the garage for a few days. Rather her than me! ?

Ditto maryhoffman37 .... but as we live out in the country my elderly Mum still asked me to bring her any dead pheasants seen laying around ..... as if !

Here in Denmark road-kill is collected by the police or a nearby vet and handed in to the nearest zoo or animal park for feeding carnivores. I find that a good idea, so I am not tempted to eat road-kill myself.

I have however said jokingly for years that the cats are welcome to bring in a pheasant, as long as the break its neck cleanly before handing it over!

Had, had, jeez I wouldn’t want that on my wall!!

Talking specifically about JSP , not you lovelies , I’ve eaten some of the above , it’s just given her propensity for liking to make an impact I hanged a horrible picture of her eating much worse!

Does any one remember the saying “ you are what you eat .....”?

I'm a vegetarian, so yuck, no.

My nephew collects deer and hangs and butchers them himself. He makes venison sausages too. Also eats squirrel and badger ...

Where I used to live in Canada we would see a lot of roadkill, racoons and suchlike.
The worst was skunk but you didn't have to see that. It really it an indescribably awful smell. You have to wind your windows up quickly or it will get in the car and it attaches to things.
I don't eat meat but I don't see anything ethically wrong with eating roadkill (except the problem that people may deliberately hit animals as SueDonim has pointed out). In fact it is more ethical if an animal has died by accident. I would worry about diseases though.

My sister's just back from New Zealand . She saw on a sign at a roadside cafe 'If you kill it, we can grill it ' .

Yes. Whenever I come across something fresh. A terrible waste of a life otherwise.
Last find was a mutjac deer; it made me 5 mvery delicious meals.

Iam my pheasant was thoroughly checked by DH and was in very good health - before it literally got bumped off that is.

Jalima - ref the worms that is why they tell you to cook porcine animals very well. If you do that you shouldn't worry about worms -I suppose it just adds to the protein! You may be able to work out that I am a country girl.

Teetime we have often eaten road kill. We actually have a pheasant in the pot right now which has been prepared for Sunday lunch. It was last week when the car in front clouted it and we stopped and picked it up. It was hanging in the garage for nearly a week, was not badly damaged and as we always pluck and skin it we could see it was fine and stomach contents were normal too. It has been cooking today with all the usual additions including half a bottle of Merlot - so all good, nothing wasted and looking forward to a nice meal tomorrow.

If the person who killed it had picked it up it would have been 'Taking game without a licence' - which is poaching funnily enough. We were entitled to pick it up as we didn't kill it and it was 'abandoned property' - strange but true. All according to my DH.

I don’t drive so it has never happened but I wouldn’t think twice about eating roadkill if I had You would eat a fish you caught and you wouldn’t know if that had a disease or not so I see no difference It’s better than it going to waste. All the poachers and country folk who have lived off roaming animals didn’t drop dead ?

I remember when J S-P was on Master Chef and boasted about eating road kill.

If you hit an animal you can't take the remains but the next person who comes along is entitled to do so, or so I heard.

Not that we ever have as the thought of eating something like that makes me feel very queasy. I never fancy eating sausages made from wild boar as I'm sure the boar are full of worms.

I'm not a veggie or a vegan. I outrage my vegan friends by explaining how hard I try to only eat free range, well cared for etc but they just continue to explain just how wicked I'm being.
I wouldn't eat road kill because whilst I'd know the fowl or beast had led a free and happy life till it was killed, I'd have no idea what it had been eating, how old it was and whether it was carrying some horrible disease.
I find Janet SP increasingly irritating.

Last week I had the opportunity to test the deer whistle which I fitted to my car after reading about them on GN. A trio of Roe deer stopped at the edge of the field from which they were about to emerge. I had spotted them so I slowed down anyway, but they would normally have kept on running across the road which could have caused a nasty accident.

I am pretty sure the law says you may take road kill but not if you were the one who did the killing!

It happens where I live, particularly with deer. However, it's illegal for anyone who has collided with an animal to take the body, presumably to prevent people deliberately targeting animals. (Mind you, my son once hit a deer by accident. It caused nearly £1000 worth of damage to my car so I wouldn't be deliberately trying to hit anything!)

My DH once knocked down and killed a deer. He called the police to report it and stayed where he was until they arrived. After replying the collision he came home. Next day he called our insurer and a claims assessor came out to look at the damage on the car. The chap that came to assess the damage asked if my DH had taken the deer. Well he didn't, it was a fully grown animal and it wouldn't have fitted into the car.
Who would butcher it for you, and what would it cost, I wonder? Apparently it is legal to collect road kill deer.