Never done a full on cow but I have done deer, hog, birds of different assortment (chicken, duck, dove, and quail), and a few other misc thing.  I think if faced with hunger I would be fine.
Hell I have even seen several autopsies not that I want to eat human.

I can, we used to process our deer ourselves when I was a kid. I take them to the processor now out of convenience.  I've never done anything bigger than a deer though, cow might be a challenge.

Does swallowing a bug count?

Yes, a variety of fish, a variety of game birds, rabbits, squirrels and Deer.  Not for food, although they are edible, Muskrats and Raccoons.  Muskrats smell very bad when skinned, pee yew.

Agree.  Lots of deliciousness in legs, wings, carcass, and offal.

Nice back fat on that buck.

Of course as a hunter my answer is yes I can.
Use to eat the tree rats all of the time as a kid.

A good set of poultry shears, a flexible boning knife, and - after a few - you'll be a pro.

I can do the classic gut, then hang, or I can do the poacher's special.  Poacher's special gets 90% of the useful meat off an animal without having to even gut the animal.   You end up walking out of the woods with a pack full of boned out meat, heart, and liver.  Leave all the guts, head, skin, and bones behind.  It took me 20 minutes to do the first deer myself after an old boy showed me how to do it.  

Of course to remain legal, the head with tag on it was taken out, but that was just to stay legal.  I don't eat the head, nor do I need the brains for tanning the hide.   It is actually easier than gutting the animal.

I haven't fully prepared any animals but fish, but I'm sure I could probably figure it out;

-kill it
-skin it
-remove poopy stuff
-cut it for cooking
-cook it
-eat it

Is that the gist of it?

Field to fork.

fish, squirrel, and chicken. never done anything bigger than that.

Yes I do, but I am over 30!

Have the skills, the tools (and back ups), and do it regularly.

It's eerie how FP usually NI.  I can shoot a deer and hack off a piece of hind leg to roast, so I am certainly a hunter.  No problem there.  It's the rest of the deer going to waste that makes me a poor hunter.

Sure, but I would do a lot of cuts with the bone still attached.  More flavor plus less waste.

If it swims, walks, crawls, flies, slithers, or chirps.... I can kill it, process it, preserve it, and prepare it.

Cook it, can it, dry it, pickle it, salt it, and barrel it.

But I am a homesteader who lives in the woods most of the time.

Most people will be dead if our world ever goes tits up. Just a fact. Hope it doesn't happen.

Have done dozens of times.  Usually throw money at it these days.

Hmmmm...what other skills do they lack.?

My wife might recall her mother's skills.  Her mom actually processed chickens in front of the children.  Mine didn't and despite growing up on a farm I've never heard her claim to have done it..

Hopefully youtube will save the day.

There is also the "after". It's hard to eat 30 pounds of deer meat before it spoils. So the ability to preserve it without refrigeration is another topic. Especially in the warmer climates.

I've done hundreds of birds when I was younger and hunting with my dad.   Birds and small game wouldn't be an issue.  Never done anything larger but I'm good with a knife and know the theory so I'd be ok.   The first few large game might be a bit rough though.  

Learned to hunt and fish by age 5.

Cleaning and cooking came a few years later.

Not much more rewarding than harvesting ones own meal....from kill to grill.

Yes but I'm not confident in field dressing.

Yes.
I haven't done a beef in years but I'm pretty current on deer and elk.

It wouldn't be pretty, as I have no practical experience with anything other than fish, but I do have the general knowledge and would figure it out the rest.

This.

Proficient like a butcher, or like in the assembly line style vee-hook-on-the-wall rabbit raising thread?  No.

I have processed squirrel, pigeon, and deer with a passable result, but certainly not with the speed and efficiency of some of my friends.

Lot of waste there.   there's a bunch of good meat on the pheasant and turkey thighs, plus the drum sticks and backs are good to boil for broth.

You would be surprised what humans would do in order to survive.

That friendly old grandma that lives in 2B? She would eat your STILL LIVING dog if she were hungry enough.

I can turn God's creatures into motherfucking high cuisine.

Sure.

If it's a chicken.  Wait for egg, eat egg, repeat.  

you can eat anything on an  animal.

Process into raw meat? Yup all day.  Cook it?  Yup-may not be up ARF dinner pic standards but can eat.  Preserving for later use?  Not so much.

Lol, yes. And so does anyone else, even if they don't know it yet.

They just have to get hungry enough.

Lol. 

I think they would be too. Would they be able to get meat in their mouths? Yes.  Would much of it be contaminated or make them sick? Yes. Sooner or later if they don't know what they are doing they are going to get sick. Never mind being able to process it properly so it tastes good.

IDK, I'm old and just started hunting 10 years ago. I found that the 30.06 wasted more meat than my butchering.

No I do not. But I know how to brew mead and how to make internet porn work.

So, I can barter my way for food.  

When I first moved out on my own, skinless, bonless chicken breast was two bucks a pound and then price doubled, so I bought a whole bird at 99 cents a pound. There I stood in my kitchen, trying to cut up a whole (already gutted, cleaned, and ready for the oven) bird into it's constituent parts, and finding myself grossed out by it.

Twenty some years later, I'm now going out into the woods and reducing living wild animals into meat for my table.  So, yeah, I think I could handle it fine.

Spilling any of the gut or stomach content on the carcass greatly accelerates the decaying process, so knowing how to properly clean game can mean the difference between dying from food poisoning or not.

Yes.. but it wouldn't be as pretty or efficient as many here

I think you underestimate the power of hunger. 

I don't personally possess the skills, but I do possess them.

Hell yes.  What self-respecting manperson doesn't?

Been fishing and hunting damn near my whole life.  Teaching my kids the same.

I don't like plucking, but had the mind to research and build a very effective tub plucker.  I have little desire to pluck one chicken at a time, but a batch of 10 is no real problem.  Pigs used to be a lot of work, but getting much better with practice.  (Did my first chicken a couple years ago, did a batch of 35 last year.  Did hogs for years, but last year went gutless.  For years made 50-100lbs of sausage at a party.  Got uninvited because I was Republican (rather than blue dog democrat).  New smoker needs about 20 minutes of work to fire up and test, but I am sick and it is fucking cold outside.  Really sucks because I fully planned making sausage this week.  Should not have built it in the cold last week I guess.

will post pic in a few minutes.  It is built to use a controlled draft smoke generator, regulated by a BBQ guru.  Walls are airgapped ply (weatherproofed with sheet metal), with the draft being between the inner and outer wall (to both insulate and prevent natural draft-due to the controlled draft smoke generator).  I need to test to see if I want to use stove gasket on the door,  still need to bend the lip of the door back and plumb in the smoke generator.

everyone keeps asking me if it will cold smoke. It was not designed to cold smoke, but I could easily modify the smoke generator to do it.  Currently the smoke generator will be housed inside for heat.  If I move it outside, I could run cold smoke through it.  The current smoke generator is a micro UDS (made from a tamale pot), but all fire basket.  If I want cold, I will just use my BBQ UDS and take a hose from the smokestack.
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not sure what is up.  Attached the pics this afternoon, edit mode still shows them, but they are not displaying anymore. Oh well.  I ended up "finishing" the smoker and doing a test smoke.  It was working beyond my hopes.  Hit temps effortlessly, held them.  All I needed to do is run out the test to its end.  Then things went to shit.  I had the temp set at 150, planning on ramping it after 1 1/2 hours to 160 or 170.  I was checking it every 10-15 minutes.  At about 1:15, I went outside and heard my guru alarm-and saw flames...  The grill in the tamale pot had melted, dropping hot coals on the bottom of the pot.  They inturn melted through the bottom of the tamale pot and into the ducting of air intake.  That caught on fire, burning out the bottom of the smoker.  I think the damage was mostly limited to the tamale pot, floor, and ducting.  I did not have my anti backdraft device installed, so the blower motor was damaged, but still runs.  Luckily I had removed the controller from its box for the test.  I caught the flames shortly before they went up the chimney ducting-there was some charring up to the walls-that would have probably gotten the fire department on scene...  

I could have stopped all of this with a steel fire pan (I have had a commercial pizza pan in the fire box of my UPS for years-which I thought was also aluminum), but did not expect 2 layers of the tamale cooker to fail.  Likewise, the anti backdraft device was only out because I wanted to test the design did not need it.  Will post some of this on the UDS mother thread, as the tamale cooker was originally from a smokie joe UDSplan.

Fish yes, bigger animals no

Yes, even made a thread about doing it.....

It's meat time

That's what soup/stock is for.  Toss what's left of the carcass in a pot of water.  Zero waste.