Is it still OK to eat?

[INresponse]

Daughter just checked on our birds and found a duck "drowned" in a water bucket. It was a gallon sized bucket with only a few inches of water, somehow it reached in without tipping it over and got stuck.
Question: It is cold outside, the duck is cold and has been cold a while and this happened sometime today. I think it should be OK, what do you think?

 

[INresponse]

OK. Excitement wore off and I realized it is no different that hunting and waiting to dress out the birds at the end of the day. Gutted and washed off and wrapped in a bag until I can get back at it tomorrow to skin and package.
Ugh

 

[Curmudgeon]

There ya go, I would have kept it too. I have picked up pheasants along side the road that weren't there a few hours before when I came through, took em home and ate em. If the temps are cool, heck yeah..

 

[INresponse]

There ya go, I would have kept it too. I have picked up pheasants along side the road that weren't there a few hours before when I came through, took em home and ate em. If the temps are cool, heck yeah..

Thank you. I guess it has been too long since I have been hunting so it took a while for me to remember that we kept the pheasants in the cooler all day and cleaned them at night or the next day.

My mind definitely was NOT prepared for the sudden discovery but I also knew I did not want to waste the meat. Funny thing, I got a text from my GF later in the evening telling me to save the fat so she could render it down, but I will see how that turns out tomorrow. I don't plan on plucking the bird, just skinning it. Maybe I can scrape some of the fat off the skin and make her happy.