Is this the right place to ask about making the fullest use of fish and animals? If not, sorry to bother you.

If so, then I am doing research on information, classes, and publications on this topic to add to what I think of as my survival-primitive skill set. I will share what I have found and take any help I can get!

Thanks.

I would think this is an appropriate place.

Speaking from experience, another good source of this information would be your local Chinatown.

-Blast

I know I could use some advice on using animals like deer and elk, but for survival purposes, knowing how to best use non-standard game would probably be helpful. I know some folks eat coon and possum. I don't think I would unless I was really in dire straights, but knowing how to best clean and what parts to avoid would be helpful.

As for Fish, I've always had a pretty standard method - gut and head them, filet or cook whole. Use leftover for bait. You could, of course, cook up the heads (especially on larger fish where there would still be some good meat). And I know many indigenous cultures eat eyes and all sorts of body parts we might otherwise throw out...

Yep, I think this is the right place.

LOL that’s funny


My brother and I were going to a Chinese Buffet tomorrow, now I’m not sure I want to…..





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I would filet them. Use the rest to make a stew/broth. Boil well and strain.

Blitz

Okay, here's what the past few days research online and friends here and there have suggested to make the fullest use of freshwater fish:

Scales: 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,

Spines: (catfish) needle, awl, weapons

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

Live small fish: bait

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

Fins and tail: fry as “chips”

Jawbones: sawblade, weapon

Of course, except for the food stuff, I do not know the "how-t" on much of this stuff - yet.

Here is the best of my fish glue research so far:

Making Fish glue

Around 1750, the first glue or adhesive patent was issued in Britain. The glue was made from fish.
http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/glue.htm

Fish glue was also made from the heads, bones, and skin of fish, but this glue tended to be too thin and less sticky. By experimenting, early man discovered that the air bladders of various fish produced a much more satisfactory glue that was white and tasteless. It eventually was named isinglass or ichthocol.
There are three classes of substance that are called glues and that do not contain chemicals, compounds, or high-tech additives; these are bone glue, hide or skin glue, and fish glue.
With only minor variations, the same basic processes are used to make bone glue, hide or skin glue, and fish glue. The hides and other scraps are washed so that dirt is removed, and they are soaked to soften them. This material is called stock, and it is cooked either by boiling it in open tanks or cooking it under pressure in autoclaves. The resulting liquid, called 'glue liquor' is extracted and reheated again to thicken the glue.
http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=inventors&cdn=money&tm=63&gps=208_25_842_814&f=10&su=p554.2.150.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Glue.html

How to make fish bladder glue by Jang Yuhwa Asian Archery FAQ
Tear the bladder into small strips
Place all the strips into a pot
Cook it in low heat. I soak the thin strips in refrigerator for a day or two, but not using grinder instead, During the cooking process I'll let it cool down and pull them into a blender (for fruit juice) ,filter it then keep cooking till done. About 20~22 hours. The temperature is way below boiling point about 60~70 degrees C.
I have done some test to compare with hide glue, it is stronger than hide glue and its greatest character is its flexibility. There will be no cracking sound when bracing the bow very first time.
Almost everything will turn into glue, if you do it right, I say 99.5% will become glue. The small amount of residual were then consume by me and it tastes like scallop quite delicious. Also when cooking beef stew, in the end a small amount of glue I made will be added. That stew taste 10 times better.
http://www.atarn.org/FAQ/fish_bladder_glue.htm

Fish glue for sale!
Comparable to Hyde glue, Fish glue is an actual collagen (protein) glue. It's the most traditionally used glue in cabinet making and is accepted by most conservators.

Fish glue is: - strong - water soluble – reversible - non-toxic
http://www.ecrantiques.com/fishglue.html

This outfit offers some animal use classes of interest:

http://www.paleotechnics.com/scheduledclassespage.html#Anchor-May-47857

7-5-08: Topics: killing, bleeding, skinning, gutting, gut processing (heart, liver, kidney, intestine, stomach, bladder), brain extraction & preservation, jaw & tongue extraction, meat cutting & preservation, fat rendering, broth-making, sausage making, hoof and sinew extraction, skin preservation, bone working & preservation.

9-10-08: For traditional peoples, animals that are depended upon for food also offer a virtual hardware store of other essential materials. With the lower legs of deer providing our raw material, we will explore methods of processing animal products into useful items. Particulars that are not actually done in class will be discussed and many finished items will be available for viewing. Projects will include skinning, boneworking, hoof removal, and, time permitting, sinew processing. People particularly interested in making a good string out of their processed sinew fiber are encouraged to take the Cordage seminar.

Actually fish glue can be pretty darned strong stuff as it works for glueing leather hinges (for the lack of a better term) for pipe organ resivors or puchs for the same thing...
though it does stink at first

You can render just about any animal out there into an edible powder. IIRC, all animal toxins are neutralized by thermo-degradation (cooking to well done)except maybe certain bacterium, which must reach a temp greater than 240 degrees. In any case, cooking all animal products to such a temperture and dehydrating them should pretty much sterilize them suitably for digeestion. You may need to trim away excess fatty deposits first, but once they've been cooked and dehydrated to a brittle stage, they should be easily ground up and usable as a foodsource, especially fish, which I believe even the bones can be thus processed and consumed by humans.

Having worked in a meat processing facility where none of the animal is wasted, the only thing that keeps us from eating all of the animal is social acceptance and the fact that there's a demand for pet food and leather upholstery. People who eat dog food are eating all the parts of the cow we would otherwise refuse, except for the hide. If it was dog chow or starvation, I think many of us would take the kibble.

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.