Grinding Waterfowl

[sram9102]

Anyone have any issues with running waterfowl through a meat grinder? I have enough duck to make a decent amount of sausage and have ran a hand held metal detector over breast for a while trying to remove shot but one still slips through occasionally. Would this damage a meat grinder?

 

[Bearwhisky]

My local processor will no longer accept waterfowl for grind because it caused so much damage to his equipment. Have not tried personally.


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[go_deep]

We do 2 things. Strip all the meat up fairly small and run a cow magnet over it to find shot, and when we grind it only use a large plate so if you miss a few BB's they pass through the plate.

 

[Banded_spooney]

Anyone have any issues with running waterfowl through a meat grinder? I have enough duck to make a decent amount of sausage and have ran a hand held metal detector over breast for a while trying to remove shot but one still slips through occasionally. Would this damage a meat grinder?

I’ve done it a lot and never had a problem. One cut to split long ways and you can easily see where bbs entered the breast. Just see if them along with a feather is still stuck in the hole.

It’s a bigger problem in theory than it is in practice.

 

[sram9102]

Thanks guys. Just upgraded to a 1hp grinder and don't want to trash it on its first grind.

 

[Tod osier]

Anyone have any issues with running waterfowl through a meat grinder? I have enough duck to make a decent amount of sausage and have ran a hand held metal detector over breast for a while trying to remove shot but one still slips through occasionally. Would this damage a meat grinder?

I've done it plenty and I've hit pellets, they do wreck your knife (be ready to turn it off if jams). Once you do it once, you have a special waterfowl knife. :0 Resharpen and have at it. I haven't seen an effect on the plate.

 

[S.Clancy]

We've put several hundred lbs of waterfowl through my grinder and never had a problem. The only thing it could really damage is the blade, but those are like 15$ and often need replacing anyway. We make ground meat jerky and do end up with pellets in the jerky occasionally, so it is always best to chew softly.....

 

[Tod osier]

We've put several hundred lbs of waterfowl through my grinder and never had a problem. The only thing it could really damage is the blade, but those are like 15$ and often need replacing anyway. We make ground meat jerky and do end up with pellets in the jerky occasionally, so it is always best to chew softly.....

I must be the unlucky one. I've hit tiny little 9 TSS and regular steel.

 

[S.Clancy]

I must be the unlucky one. I've hit tiny little 9 TSS and regular steel.

Maybe it is a density issue. When we are cleaning birds whenever we get to one that doesn't have obvious pellets in the breast/thighs I tell my girlfriend "Ah, this is my bird, I only head shoot them...". Hahahaha.

In reality, I shoot almost all steel #2's so it is not like there is a ton of pellets anyway, at least compared to #9's. And #2 holes are pretty easy to see

 

[Yoteassasin]

I’ve ground hundreds of pounds of waterfowl over the years and have yet to have a issue . I slice at any puncture and rinse thoroughly in a colander during prep . Another tool to use are those game washing buckets . They are incredibly effective at stripping bloodshot and knocking shot out of birds

 

[t_carlson]

I've ground some without a problem.

Wife didn't like biting BBs though, so now I cube and then run a metal detector over the meat before doing anything with it.

 

[butcherboy]

I quit grinding it in my shop as well. It can wreak havoc on a knife blade. Plus there are issues with it being fowl so we really had to sanitize the heck out of all the equipment.

 

[sram9102]

Thanks for the info guys. I ended up filleting the duck breast in half and running the metal detector over them. Found all of the pellets I believe. No harm done to the grinder.

 

[drra]

I've only done it once and as was mentioned earlier, I stripped the meet into very small strips and was fortunate not to miss any pellets. It doubled the time (at least) but it was worth it as I didn't want to damage my grinder or parts of it (also didn't want a pellet in the sausage). The sausage that I added ground pork to (complement the duck/goose meat) turned out much better than the sausage without the port