Roadkill- look away vegans and vegetarians

My son picks up road kill, rabbit, deer &pheasant....he is good at the butchery side of it too?....he portions it up and freezes it.

I think you're right midgey you can only take road kill if it's been killed, not if you're the killer.

My son's friend hit a large deer (it wrote the car off but thankfully he, partner and small son were fine). He went back and took the head, cleaned it and now has the skull with antlers on the wall!!!! Not sure what his OH thinks but I think she's used to his eccentricities!

I would eat road kill if I didn’t have a phobia about dead things. I find it very hard to touch or even go near anything with it’s clothes, head and feet/fins still on. I can and have skinned rabbits and plucked chickens - but only after several stiff drinks and someone else removing the heads. I wouldn’t know where to start with a deer. I wouldn’t eat badger or fox, but I’m not sure why.

I consume deer, rabbit and game birds and I don’t really see the difference between eating road kill and something which has been shot. Any wild thing may carry disease however its killed.

I have never eaten roadkill but I once asked DH to stop the car so that we could pick up a fresh looking cock pheasant carcass lying in the road. I didn’t want to eat it, but it would have kept me in fly tying feathers for eons! He refused, on the grounds that it was a new car and he didn’t want to sully his boot with dead things. I sulked.

I knew someone who ate it and actually moved to his current address because of the quantity of local roadkill. He was a repulsive little man and didn’t inspire me to follow his example.

My DD has to drive every day in rural Wisconsin and wild animals are a regular hazard. Deer are the worst. Locals say it’s the second one that gets you - you see the first and the second one crashes into your car. Someone was killed that way recently, when driving to the hospital where his wife was in labour. An awful thing to happen.

Hello, Joan. Unless I'm mistaken, you haven't been around for ages. Welcome back.

I used to be on a site for people who keep chickens. One man would collect road kill, put the body in a wire basket suspended above the chicken run, so that as it rotted, the birds got the maggots.....The thought revolted me, and my own little darlings only got the best laying pellets, weeds, curl grubs I found while gardening, and veggie peelings. (Though I'm sure they'd have loved roadkill maggots!)

I’m veggie but I think eating roadkill more acceptable than people who will only eat meat sold in sanitised plastic trays and wouldn’t dream of visiting an abattoir or electrocuting a chicken. I would think roadkill probably better to eat than animals forced into small cages and treated with hormones , antibiotics etc . I’d leave it for the crows or birds of prey.

I agree with suedonim and quizqueen leave roadkill to the foxes, and as a lifelong vegetarian the thought of any dead animal tasting 'delicious' ...yuk!

I wouldn't eat roadkill in any circumstances, too worried about what disease the animal could be carrying!

Foxes are not classed as vermin by DEFRA.

Yes, they do cause pandemonium when they get into hen coops etc but that's the fault of the hen-keeper for not securing their premises. For a fox to have access to a full hen coop is like putting a child into a sweetie shop - of course they're going to make the most of the opportunity. Foxes are opportunistic feeders and their instinct tells them to kill the prey in front of them - they can't count or reason hence the body count.

I would never feed a fox! You should see what they do to hens and even lambs. They don't just take the one to eat it is sheer blood lust and they kill/destroy whatever they can get hold of and then just leave it. That is why they are classed as vermin.

You can't take roadkill if you're the one that killed it! Except for swans which have to be offered to the Crown. Probably devised to stop you aiming your car! As long as I was in the car behind, I wouldn't have a problem!

Leave the road kill for the foxes. They need it more than you. Every day is a life or death struggle to survive as they can't go shopping in Tesco.

If you've hit a pheasant and there's nobody behind you, pull over then pick it up if it's not badly damaged.

Who on earth is going to report you?

I haven't and don't think I could. I'm not a veggie but I eat very little meat. In my younger days when I had the health to go cycling there'd be quite a few run-over animals in the roadside in the countryside but I don't think any of our gang bothered to pick anything up for tea.

Why are people worried about disease? How many pheasant diseases are transmissible to humans? None that I know of! If you have eyes and a nose you can see if the meat is diseased. These animals just died because they didn't learn their Green Cross Code!

It's illegal for the 'killer' to pick it up, Grannysyb, as a number of people have said.

If you have killed it; pick it up you know it's fresh. What's the difference between buying a pheasant from a butcher or one you've killed? I'm mystified by people saying they might be diseased?

Mcem absolutely not! I'm in rural Scotland and our local roads are currently littered with dead pheasant. It's mating season and the males (you rarely see dead females) must be sex-crazed because they don't seem to look before crossing the road at this time of year.

I also witnessed the aftermath of a deer collision a couple of weeks ago. It was so sad to see a beautiful creature lying dead in the road. It's shocking for humans, too - my daughter's friend was killed when she collided with a deer and her car subsequently hit a tree.

Driving through the Angus glens a week or two ago we spotted lots of pheasants but didn't hit any. I realised at the time that there was virtually no roadkill.
A few years ago driving around North Wales we were surprised at just how many dead beasts were lying around!
So do we conclude that Scottish animals have better road sense than their Welsh cousins?

I don't but I am happy to give it to my animals who are raw fed.

About 5 years ago, when driving to our granddaughter's wedding, as we rounded a corner, a pheasant threw himself at the car bonnet. As we couldn't safely stop, we drove on. I joked about taking it home, but didn't realise that it would have been an illegal act. Perhaps a following motorist benefitted?

I'm been vegetarian for 30ish years but would like to say that I respect your personal values Iam64 - such a shame that some veggies/vegans resort to what amounts to bullying. I was brought up in a village and rabbit pie was often on the menu - not enough cars about in the 50's to produce much road kill.
Often wonder what the legal position is with regards to badger roadkill, imagine it would be rather like eating dog. I find it so distressing to see so many on the roadside.

I would not fancy eating roadkill because I would not know if animal had died from a disease. I prefer a quick trip to Morrisons for meat.