I agree. People will say "I won't eat this" or "I won't eat that". Then they gobble down a plate of fried clams, which are nothing more than worms in a shell that filter feed sewerage (they grow extra big next to sewer outlets - makes for the best clamming when you are selling to the finer restaurants).

I can attest to raccoon being a fine meat. If I were hungry I would eat just about anything that moves. Guess I am just smart, thats all!

Updated fish use list:

Scales: art, jewelry, arrowpoints (gar, sturgeon)

Skin: tan, weak glue, fertilizer, render for oil,

Bones: fishhooks, weak glue, fertilizer, hair comb, jewelry, sewing tools, weapon

Swim bladder: excellent glue, fishing float

Entrails: bait, fertilizer

Flesh: food

Eggs: food (not alligator gar)

Spines: (catfish) needle, awl, weapons

Carcass minus meat: render for oil, cook for fish stock,

Small fish (alive or dead): bait

Heads: meat, chowder, brains for tanning, eyes for vitamins (soup or roast)

Fins and tail: fry as “chips”

Jawbones: saw blade, weapon

Whole fish: dry, pulverize to powder, use in soups and stews

Alligator gar skin oil: insect repellant

Still researching; still no personal hands-on experience with much of anything except using the flesh as food. How about you folks?

Thanks.

Updated fullest use of mammals

Hide: tan

Blood: food

Head: Jaw – saw, weapon

Teeth: tools, jewelry

Tongue and cheek meat: food

Brain: tanning, food

Eyes: food,

Horns / antlers: tools, weapons

Skull: container, lamp

Legs: Flesh: food

Tendons/sinew: cordage

Bones: split for marrow – food, tools, weapons, boil for food

Cartilage: boil for food

Hooves: glue

Claws: tools, jewelry

Body: Bones: marrow food, tools, weapons, boil for food

Flesh: food

Organs: Heart, Kidneys, Testes, and Liver food

Intestines (cleaned) sausage casings, (dried): carry pouches, cordage

Stomach (cleaned and dried): carry pouch,

Fat: food, render for oil

Still researching; still no personal hands-on experience with much of anything except using the flesh as food. How about you folks?

Thanks.

The stomach can carry "water" - aka: water bag

This site has a lot on tanning and butchering:

http://www.ssrsi.org/

FYI: Name change: The Sacramento Tracking And Wilderness Training Group

The moderator of the Wilderness_Survival_and_Primitive_Skills group has changed the group's name.

This means that both the group's email address and the group home page location have changed.

The group email address:
The_Sacramento_Tracking_And_Wilderness_Traing_Group@yahoogroups.com

The group home page location:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Sacramento_Tracking_And_Wilderness_Traing_Grou\
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I'm uncertain of your question. I'm from a long line of midwestern farmers, and when we butcher hogs, we use everything but the squeal, and that's no joke. It's no big deal, and most everyone back home still does it.

As I've been more and more into hunting, most animals are fairly similar in what you can eat and what you can use for non-eating purposes.

Hogs have a nice waterproof sack around the heart that my grandfather used to hold his tobacco. I don't know if other animals have that. Cow tongue and heart is still a delicacy as far as I'm concerned...

Sodak, I am at least three generations removed from the farm, No one else in at least two generations cares for anything outdoors except the view from a car or resort patio. Fishing was a forbidden topic and hunting condemned as the worst kind of unspeakable sin.

As a result I have been re-learning a little of the education you may take for granted. Fishing is second nature now, foraging for edible and useful plants getting more comfortable all the time, but for me hunting is still very new and "using everything but the squeal" is yet to be experienced.

Gradually fishing became acceptable when I brought home neatly sealed fillets of trout, striped bass, and salmon. My gun ownership and hunting for birds, and various kinds of target shooting, have remained secrets from my family to this day.

So my question has been, what is the fullest use of mammals? I am doing my homework online and intend to get bloody and stinky (and probably throw up a couple times) later this year under the guidance of a couple classes I found and some new friends I am making who hunt. As yet, I have not run into anyone who makes an effort to use all of an animal, outside the classes; most want nothing to do with anything but the meat.

So that's my deal.

It used to be that a lot more of the animals we hunted and harvested, or raised and slaughtered, were used or consumed directly by us humans. Gradually, we've discovered that some parts are not as useful/good for us as we used to believe.

For the most part, organ meats, while providing a variety to normal muscle tissue consumption, also had some additional nutrient value thought to be worth the trouble of processing them. Liver provides a good source of vitamin A, and organs tended to have higher mineral content and other vital nutrients. Unfortunately, organs also tend to have more disease related issues with their consumption. Anymore, eating any part of the central nervous system is discouraged due to BSE and CWD, which bioaccumulates and can cross contaminate. E-Coli also became a lot more prevalent, thus dissuading the consumption of any part of the digestive system. As well, synthetic replacements became readily available on the market that were cheaper to produce, much safer, and generally more functional (sausage casings and such).

Consequently, a goodly portion of the animals we process commercially go to pet food, fertilizer or other indirect consumption, like hides into leather. Having worked in an "Iowa Beef" processing plant, I got to see firsthand what went where, and learned pretty quick that standing up to your chest in a pit full of cow guts while unjamming an auger isn't going to kill you, and doesn't have to make you nauseated. If you choose to let it bother you, then it will, but you can control that if you want. I was told that the first time I killed a deer and had to dress it I would get sick, but it never happened, and I have to say it is because I made up my mind that it wasn't going to bother me. It's not like motion sickness, where you have to deal with real physical effects. Unless you have some unusual biological trait like an allergic reaction, the smells, sounds, and touch of processing dead animals has no effect on a person except psychological, so long as you take proper hygenic precautions.

Because I have pets and usually process the hide of the animals I harvest from the wild (not so much birds, but certainly deer sized game and bigger), I'd say I utilize about 90% of what I take. Some of the bones I render for stock, and some go directly to the dogs. For birds I'd say maybe 75 to 80% because I don't have much use for bird feathers. For fish, it is at least 90%, about half the time I will use the heads to make fish stock with.

Pigs are perhaps less wasteful than most, if you are willing to use the organ meat. I grew up eating cured pork meat with the rind still on, and I have teeth capable of masticating the rind (cured skin) fairly efficiently, and I've eaten pig's feet and ears, though I would prefer making a treat of those for my dogs nowadays. The only trouble with pigskin was when grandma wouldn't get all the hair off and you'd have to pick it out of the mouthful you'd be chewing on. Hog casing is the most commonly used natural sausage casing.

If you really think you are going to have a problem with getting ill while field dressing game, then I suggest going without food for a couple days then attend a hog butchering and take some of the meat and cook it up with a little creole seasoning and eat it directly. Your stomach will convince your brain that what you saw is no big deal when that meat comes off the bbq and you get a whiff and a taste of it, I gar-on-tee! After that, I bet you won't get so squeamish no more.