Wild game Flashcards
What are the main products of wild game?
- Velvet antler
- Leather
- Feathers
- Meat
What are domestic ungulates?
Domestic bovine, porcine, ovine and caprine animals and domestic solipeds
What are lagomorphoes?
Rabbits, hares and rodents
What is meant by wild game?
- Wild ungulates and lagomorphs, and other land mammals hunted for human consumption
- Defined as wild game under applicable law in member state concerned
- Wild birds hunted for human consumption
- Includes mammals living enclosed territory under conditions of freedom similar to those of wild game
What is small wild game?
Wild game birds and lagomorphs living freely in the wild
What is large wild game?
Wild land mammals living freely in the wild, that do not fall within definition of small wild game
What is meant by park game?
Refers to deer herds that roam freely in protected park lands, fall into wild game definition as are not farmed
What is required before the shooting of wild game?
- Stalking
- Hunter must observe game and note abnormalities
- Assess: level of alertness, carriage of head, limbs, general condition and quality of movement
Where can wild meat be processed?
- Only Authorised Game Handling Establishments (AGHEs)
Who performs the AMI of wild game?
- No official AMI
- Declaration from hunter required with large game
Who performs the PMI of wild game?
- Large: OV or MHI in AGHE, or trained hunter in the field if sold directly to establishments e.g. pub
- Small: only performed on 50 carcasses or 5% of animals per submitted batch if taken to AGHE, otherwise trained hunter (but no declaration needed)
What are the legal requirements where small quantities of wild game are supplied to the final consumer/retailer?
- Not all legislation applies as are not a food business
- Still responsible for safe meat
- No vet inspection, local authority only
What are the legal requirements where are supplying game in fur or feather to an AGHE?
- Are a food business
- Need to be registered with local authroty and comply with regulations
- No vet inspection needed, but need Trained Person Declaration
What are the legal requirements where are larder owner or transporter of game meat in fur or feather to an AGHE?
- Comply with hygiene requirements regarding transport
- Registered with Local Authority
- Ensure trained declaration available to FBO at AGHE
What are the legal requirements if you shoot and cook game and supply to the final consumer?
- Inform LA
- Comply with hygiene requirements
- Have HACCP based system in place
What are the legal requirements if the main business is preparation of game meat from brought in carcasses which then sell onward to wholesale and retail consumers?
- Are a food business
- Contact FSA to obtain AGHE license instead of registering with LA
- Comply with hygiene regulations and HACCP based system in place
- Only accept large game that has been examined by Trained Hunter
What is meant by a Trained Hunter?
- Someone with sufficient knowledge of pathology of wild game and production and handling of wild game meat after hunting to undertake initial examination of wild game on the spot
- Does not have to be the hunter
- training provided by Lantra, National Gamekeepers Organisation (NGO)
- Qualified professionals e.g. vets, doctors, Environmental Health Officers or Meat Inspectors will automatically be qualified as Trained Persons
What must be included in the inspection by a trained person?
- Examination of body, and in case of large wild game, any viscera removed
- If unexpectedly unavailable, all viscera except intestines and stomach must accompany the body
What must be included on the Trained Person/Hunter Declaration?
- Date, time and place of killing
- Must state: non suspicion of enviromental contamination, no abnormal behaviour before killing, no abnormal characteristics found during examination
- Numbered with individual licence number, carcass identification
- Attached to carcass or clearly correlated to relevant carcass
What are the declaration requirements for small wild game?
- NO declaration required
- If abnormal behaviour, characteristic or environmental contamination suspected, must report to competent authority
- Recommended that information attached as label to trays in which small wild game is sent to AGHE
What are the requirements regarding the viscera of feral wild boar?
- Susceptible to Trichinellosis
- Head (not tusks) and diaphragm must accompany body in all cases
- OV at AGHE will ensure Trichinella testing is completed
What are the requirements regarding the viscera of wild game deer?
- With declaration, body need not be accompanies by head or viscera
- Without, head (except antlers and horns), heart, lungs and liver but not stomach and intestines, must accompany the body
Outline the steps in processing of wild game once in the AGHE
- Prevent cross-contamination by separation either in time or space of operations carried out on different species
- Separate facilities for reception and storage of unskinned carcasses of farmed game slaughtered at farm and wild game
- Ensure all pre-requisites for building, equipment, personnel and raw material re hygiene must be in place
- Inspection team required
Outline the AGHE specific requirements
- Separation of skinned/unskinned carcasses
- Separation of large/small wild game
- ABP do not need staining, no SRM
- Receive daily inspections by MHI, monthly by OV or when required
What are the temperature requirements for the storage of wild game?
- 7degreesC large game
- 4degreesC small game
- 3degreesC offal
What are the general requirements regarding the processing of wild game?
- All hygiene pre-requisites and temperature requirements met
- HACCP in place
- Traceable
- Audited by vet from FSA
What are the advantages of farmed game over wild?
- Meat keeps its organoleptic wild-game qualities regardless of of food
- Available all year round, not just hunting season
What is meant by farmed game birds?
Means farmed birds, including birds not considered domestic but which are farmed as domestic animals with the exception of ratites
What is meant by farmed game?
Farmed ratities and farmed land mammals other than those referred to as domestic ungulates
What are ratites?
Flightless birds e.g. ostriches, rhea, casowari, kiwis
Compare the AMI and PMI of farmed game species and correlating domestic species
- If farmed and killed at abattoir, is same as red meat
- AMI by OV, PMI by OV or MHI
- If farmed and killed on farm: AMI by AV or OV, PMI by OV or MHI at approved abattoir
Compare the FCI requirements for farmed game and wild game
- FCI required for farmed game animals
- If killed at farm, this is called “Health Certificate”
- Not required for wild game
Describe the dressing of wild game
- Bled immediately after shooting
- Tie oesophagus
- Free anus by cutting in full circle
- Sticking not routinely conducted in wild game and head/neck shot deer = retained blood in carcass
What is examined in the hunter inspection of wild game?
- Age, sex, nutritional state, bruising/haemorrhage, indications of faecal contamination or decomposition, local or general oedema, efficiency of bleeding, abnormality of bones/joints/musculature
- Abnormalities of consistency or colour, condition of pleura and peritoneum
- Signs indicating presence of veterinary drug residues or poisoning
- Signs of disease
What organs are examined in wild game PMI?
- Spleen
- Liver
- Lungs
- Heart
- Kidneys
- Reproductive organs
- Head
- Feet
- Whole carcass
Describe the PMI inspection of hte spleen
- Examine surface and size
- Possible diseases: anthrax ifenlarged AND very dark, animal also bleeding from some or all of its natural orifices
- Enlarged spleen may be result of seasonal changes of past infection
Describe the wild game PMI inspection of the liver
- Examine ortal lymph nodes, surface and substance
- Diseases: liver fluke, TB, hepatitis, Cysticercus tenuicollis, Hydatid cyst, fatty change, tumour, abscesses
Describe the wild game PMI inspection of the lungs
- Examine right and left bronchial lymph nodes
- Examine mediastinal lymph nodes
- Examine and palpate lungs
- Diseases: pneumonia, pleurisy, TB, hydatid cysts, lung worms, tumours, abscesses
Describe the wild game PMI inspection of the heart
- Open pericardium and examine heart muscle
- Diseases: pericarditis, septic pericarditis, cysts
Describe the wild game PMI inspection of the kidneys
- Expose and examine external surface
- Diseases: hydronephrosis, nephritis, cysts
Describe the wild game PMI inspection of reproductive organs
- Examine male and female reproductive tract
- Diseases: tumours, abscesses, retained foeti
Describe the wild game PMI of the head
- Examine lips and tongue (FMD)
- Examine jaw bones (actinomycosis)
- Examine retropharyngeal and submaxillary lymph nodes (B, abscesses, actinobacillosis)
Describe the wild game PMI of the feet
- Examine between the cleats of feet
- FMD
Describe the wild game PMI of the whole carcass
- Examine internal surfaces
- Abscesses, TB, bruising (extensive and severe), oedema, pyrexia, emaciation (pathological) and uraemia
Where are Warble Flies notifiable?
- In Scotland only
- Affect cattle, deer and horses but is not a notifiable disease in deer
What are the consequences of identification of warble flies, or liver fluke in deer?
- Partial rejection of affected area/organ
- Unless jaundice is present with liver fluke (complete rejection)
What are the guidelines regarding the consumption of road kill?
- Not allowed to enter the human food chain
- Animal health status unknown
- Significant contamination
What are the notifiable diseases of wild boar?
- FMD
- Classical and African Swine fever
- Anthrax
- Swine vesicular disease
- Teschen disease
- Vesicular stomatitis
- Aujeszky’s disease
- TB
What are the notifiable diseases in deer?
- Bovine TB
- Bluetongue
- Epizootic haemorrhagc virus disease
- Brucellosis
- Anthrax
- Chronic Wasting Disease
Describe tuberculosis in deer
- Mostly foundin carcass and visceral lymph nodes
- May also be in lungs and kidneys
- Purulent material in affected LNs
- Casefied lesions less common
- In roe deer, TB lesions may calcify in the lungs, spleen and liver, easily confused with Avian TB (common in deer)
Describe the steps following suspicion of FMD in wild game
- Trained hunter notifies local divisional Veterinary manager (DVM)
- If still attached to in-fur carcass, FSA stagff may inspect mouth, gums and tongue for presence of blister and/or ulcers if brought to abattoir
Describe the steps following suspicion of anthrax in AGHE
- Check declaration from trained hunter for abnormal haemorrhages detected during gralloching
- OV to check spleen for signs of congestion, splenomegaly
- OV to check red offal for signs of abnormal congesting/extended haemorrhages
- Has never been reported in any species of deer in UK
Outline the risk and control against Lyme disease when dealing with wild game carcasses
- Maintain all GHP when dressing carcass in field or elsewhere
- Transmitted by Ixodes ricinus
- Common in deer
Where are wild game carcasses stored?
Larder/collection centre
What are the functions of wild game larders?
- Initial cooling of carcass
- Provide temporary storage to handle wild game carcasses under hygienic conditions prior to dispatch to the GHE or similar establishment
What is required in wild game larders?
- Hygiene
- Separation of in-fur/feather and skinned carcasses, and eviscerated/un-eviscerated
- Ventilation
- Traceability
- Inspections by LA
Outline small game handling
- Hung up or allow air circulation to allow heat to disperse as quickly as possible to bring to 4degreesC
- Game carts allow air flow around product, protect from contamination, pests and weather
- Product transferred to larder in timely manner to avoid deterioration
Outline the transport of small wild game
- Vehicles should be designed, constructed and maintained to enable game to be transported in hygienic conditions and minimise risk of deterioration of product
- Regulated by local authority
Outline the requirements of small game larders
- Refrigerated
- Adequate hanging space for numbers expected
- pest and rodent proofing
- Traceability system to identify day and location of shoot
- If no chill facilities available, procedures in place to transport product for processing within reasonable timescale
Outline the requirements for dry plucking
- Remove diseases/damaged birds prior to plucking
- Avoid breaking skin on birds during plucking
- Provide appropriate supervision and use trained/experienced staff
- Separation of plucked/unplucked birds
- Provide adequate handwashing facilities in actual defeathering area
- All staff wash hands at regular intervals during working period
- PPE and clean selves at regular intervals during working period
- Premises in good condition and proofed against pests
Outline some PMI findings in small wild game
- Signs of decomposition (greening/wet appearance under feathers)
- Fungal growth on surface of carcasses
- Fly strike
- Contamination
- Damage (foreign bodies may be from hunting or not)
- Abnormal odour
- Abnormalities of joints (partial rejection)
- Oedema, ascites
- Emaciation
- Generalised presence of tumours or abscesses
Outline some PMI findings of wild game birds
- Bumblefoot
- Coccidiosis
- Septicaemia
- Histomoniasis (black head, enlarged caecae, typical liver lesions)
- Fleas, lice, mites
- Avian TB in eviscerated birds
- Trauma
What are the notifiable diseases of small wild game?
- None in lagomorphs
- Birds: Newcastle disease, HPAI, LPAIH5 and H7, paramyxovirus in pigeons
- where 5 or more wild birds dead in same location, report to APHA
Outline the zoonotic risk from small wild game
- Risk from handled carcasses and diseased offal of lagomorphs
- Mainly vector transmitted diseases e.g. Q fever, Lyme disease, Salmonella, Campylobacter
What are the marking requirements for game meat ready for sale?
- Oval Health mark applied on deer and wild boar carcasses
- Oval identification mark applied to packaging on small game
