How to Field Dress Deer Glands

by Joe White

Overview

Removing the scent glands is the very first step of field dressing a deer. It is important to remove the glands immediately since they can contaminate the meat.

The primary glands of a deer

Step 1

Make sure the deer is dead. Poke its buttocks or flank, and finally touch its eyeball with a stick to make sure it's safe to begin dressing it.
Step 2

Locate the tarsal glands. They are about 3 inches in diameter on the insides of the deer's hind legs. They are darker in color, smell strongly and are often wet with urine.
Step 3

Do not touch the glands themselves, and give them at least an inch-wide berth during the entire process, since they are extremely strong-smelling and will make your hands stink.
Step 4

Stretch out the skin at the back of the deer's leg using your thumb and forefinger, and puncture the skin with your knife.
Step 5

Cut upward and downward along the rear edge of the leg from the joint, keeping at least an inch from the gland, until you have cut up to an inch above the top of the gland and down to an inch below the bottom.
Step 6

Insert the knife beneath the skin and cut the skin across the inside of the leg from beneath, making parallel cuts an inch above and an inch below the gland (about 5 inches apart).
Step 7

Connect the two parallel cuts when you have reached the front edge of the leg or when you have given the gland sufficient clearance.
Step 8

Peel off the rectangle of skin you have excised, which will include the gland, and discard it.
Step 9

Repeat on the deer's other leg.

Overview