Clean Your First Squirrel on a Saturday, Not in an Emergency

Quick answer: Wear nitrile gloves, check the liver before you commit to eating anything, and cook the meat through to 165°F. Then learn it for real during a legal October squirrel season, not on the worst day of your life.

The first squirrel you clean will take you forty minutes and you'll find hair on it for a week. Squirrel hair is the glitter of the woods. It sticks to the meat, to your knife, to the cuff of your jacket, and to the inside of the zip bag you swore was clean.

That's fine. That's the point of doing it the first time with a truck nearby, a cooler of ice and a full stomach. Every survival skill you can practice legally in normal life should be practiced that way, and small game is the easiest one to practice that people almost never do.

Before you pull the trigger

Get the legal side right first. You'll need a hunting license, most states and provinces require a hunter education course for new hunters, and squirrel and rabbit seasons, bag limits and legal methods all vary. Some places allow air rifles for small game. Some don't. Nothing here's legal advice. Check your state or provincial wildlife agency's regulations, and ask a qualified instructor or attorney when something isn't clear. Don't assume there's an "emergency exception" that covers you, either.

The classic small game firearm is a .22 rimfire rifle or a 20-gauge shotgun. Either one is a responsibility you carry, every second it's in your hands. The four rules apply in the squirrel woods the same as anywhere:

• Treat every gun as if it's loaded.
• Never point the muzzle at anything you aren't willing to destroy.
• Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
• Know your target and what's beyond it.

That last rule matters more with squirrels than with almost anything else you'll hunt, because squirrels live up. A .22 bullet fired at an upward angle can carry a very long way. Never take a shot at a squirrel skylined on a branch. Wait until it's against a thick trunk or on the ground, where you can see exactly where the bullet stops.

If you've never had formal instruction, start there. Your first firearms class isn't a test you can fail, and it'll make your first hunt calmer and safer.

The kit, and what it costs

You don't need much, and most of what gets sold for this job is the wrong tool.

What we'd buy:

• Nitrile gloves. A box of 100 runs about $10 to $15. Keep four pairs in a sandwich bag in your pack.
• A small fixed blade. A Mora Companion, around $20, is the right size. A 4-inch blade is plenty for a rabbit.
• A pocket sharpener. A ceramic rod or diamond card, roughly $15. Hide and hair dull an edge faster than you'd think.
• Gallon zip bags. One for meat, one for anything you're throwing away.
• A liter of clean water for rinsing, separate from your drinking water.
• An instant-read thermometer at home, about $15 to $25.

What we'd skip: the big hollow-handled "survival knife" with the sawback spine. It's built for the movie version. On a squirrel it's like doing a watch repair with a hatchet. Skip gut hooks for small game too.

Look before you cut

The one real hazard in small game is tularemia, sometimes called rabbit fever. It's a bacterial infection carried by rabbits, hares and rodents, and people usually catch it by handling an infected animal, especially through a nick in the skin. That's why the gloves go on first and stay on.

Before you shoot, watch the animal. A rabbit that's sluggish, stumbling or lets you walk right up to it isn't your lucky day. Leave it. And never eat anything you found already dead.

After you open it up, look at the liver. A healthy one is a deep, even reddish-brown. If it's dotted with small white or yellowish spots, throw the whole animal out. Bag it, take your gloves off carefully, wash your hands, and move on. Your state wildlife agency may want to hear about it.

The old rule about only hunting rabbits after the first hard frost is folklore. It's not a safety system. Gloves, the liver check and a thermometer are.

Early-season squirrels sometimes carry botfly larvae under the skin, called warbles. They're unpleasant to look at and harmless to the meat. Cut the spot away and carry on.

If you develop a fever, swollen glands or a sore that won't heal within about two weeks of handling a wild rabbit, see a doctor and tell them about the rabbit. That detail changes what they test for.

Rabbit: the easy one

A rabbit's skin is thin and comes off almost too easily. Pinch the loose skin over the middle of the back, make a small cut across it, hook two fingers into the slit, and pull in opposite directions. The hide peels off toward the head and toward the feet like you're taking off a wet sweater. Cut off the head and feet at the joints.

Because the hide tears so easily, you'll get very little hair on the meat. Enjoy that. The squirrel won't be so kind.

Squirrel: the stubborn one

Squirrel hide is tough and holds on hard. The cleanest method is the tail-step. Lay the squirrel belly-down, cut through the tailbone from underneath without cutting through the skin on top, then keep cutting a few inches along the back. Stand on the tail, grab the hind legs, and pull slowly and steadily upward. The skin peels both ways at once.

It'll feel like it isn't working. Keep pulling. Then work the skin off the front legs and the back legs by hand.

Do this with clean, damp hands or gloves, and hair transfer drops a lot. Squirrels also have small waxy glands under the front legs. Cut them out.

Gutting both animals

This part is the same for both. Pinch the belly skin and lift it away from the organs, then make a shallow cut just big enough for two fingers. Slide those fingers in, blade edge up between them, and open the belly from the pelvis to the ribs. The fingers keep the knife off the intestines.

Sweep everything out with your fingers. Cut carefully around the vent. If you nick the bladder or the gut, rinse the meat right away and don't panic. It happens on everybody's first one.

Keep the heart and kidneys. Keep the liver only if it passed inspection. Rinse the cavity with your clean water, pat it dry, and get the meat cool. In warm weather, it should be on ice within a couple of hours.

Pack out your gloves and bags. Dispose of the entrails well away from trails and water, following local rules. Leave the spot cleaner than you found it, even if somebody else's litter was already there.

Cook it through, then drink the broth

Wild rabbit and squirrel need to reach 165°F inside. Without a thermometer, cook until there's no pink anywhere and the meat pulls easily off the bone.

In the field, boil it. A small steel pot and a stew does three things a skewer over the fire won't. It cooks the meat evenly all the way through. It softens a tough old squirrel. And it keeps every bit of fat in the broth instead of dripping it into the coals.

That fat matters. Rabbit is very lean, and you can't live on lean meat alone for long. Eat the organs you kept and drink the broth.

Where this fits in a real emergency

Be honest about this. If you're lost for a weekend, hunting isn't your priority. Shelter, warmth, water and being found come long before food. You can go a long time without a meal. You can't go long soaked and cold. The first hour you're lost in the woods is about staying put and staying warm, not stalking rabbits.

Small game matters in a longer stretch, and that skill only exists if you've built it in normal life first.

Take a class

Most state wildlife agencies run hunter education and mentored learn-to-hunt programs, and many include a small game day where somebody experienced stands next to you while you clean your first animal. Take one. Ten minutes beside a person who's done it a thousand times will save you an hour of fighting a squirrel hide.

And when you get home, the rifle goes into the locked safe before the squirrel goes into the sink. If you have kids, make sure they also know what to do if they ever find a gun.

Then cook the stew. It'll be the best thing you've eaten all month. The hair is a small price to pay.