Thawing Frozen Roadkill

If these animals have been on the roadway over an hour in the hot sun, they become “green bellied “ fast. Squirrels are more forgiving that rabbits. I’d lay them out on a towel for 6-8 hours in a cool room and skin away. If they are bad, it’s because they were bad when you received them, not from thawing.

 

I have had great luck thawing whole animals in pickle. I believe it's Brian Hendricks that showed it on a YouTube video. What I do is mix up a pickle that I'd use before tanning, and just put the whole thing in there. It will leak blood and stuff, so this is what I keep as my "dirty pickle" . Skin it when it's thawed enough to move the legs, then put the hide in a fresh pickle. As long as you keep the pH low, I haven't found any issues using this same pickle for a long time even if it looks disgusting, since everything gets washed in the end.
I rotate, dumping my dirty pickle and replacing it with what was the clean pickle when that gets dirty. Just watch the pH.
Only works for what you can fit in the bucket but I mainly work on small animals and it's perfect. I haven't lost anything that way other than what might have already been iffy before I froze it.

 

Hi WhiteRabbit87,

Could I defrost roadkill squirrels in alcohol for the same effect, or is it specifically in an acid pickle to get good results? One I picked up the other day had a smacked in skull and was very bloody, so would alcohol be enough to disolve that prior to skinning, or pickle better for blasting away the bacteria?

Thank you.