Meat cleaning question

So how do you folks get the stuck on hairs and bits of dirt off your game? Seems like every time I field dress a nutter, when I get it back home I can hardly get all the stuck on stuff off. I pick it off, but sometimes it tears holes in the meat. I mean, I'm washing it with cold water and rubbing it with a paper towel and all...any tricks I'm missing?
 
Anything I plan on eating, I clean and skin asap. The freezer bag idea @fuznut is perfect for small game. A cheap Costco ice chest for deer sized game. For deer, I throw ice in with the quartered meat..and once the ice chest is in the truck, I even add cold water...which sloshes around on the trip home and leaches out blood. Get the meat as cool as you can as fast as you can.

Use disposable surgical gloves for each animal. They keep your hands blood free and don't take up any room in the backpack. Paper towels or hand sanitizer wipes for clean-up..with a spare freezer bag for used gloves and wipes.
 
I skin and gut them once I return home. Placing the carcass on the removed pelt/skin. I sometimes keep a bucket of water near by to pour over a freshly cleaned carcass (if I have several) or once skinned and gutted I rinse them under a water hose. I use a plastic grocery bag to place rinsed carcasses in to take inside. Once inside I rinse carcasses thoroughly in a clean sink beneath warm or cool running water. Then I drip dry. Next I date freezer bags and leave write a note on the contents with a Sharpie. Finally I bag them to place in the freezer.

This is my process for raccoon, rabbit, and squirrels. As long as they weren’t shot through the intestines (gut) this works fine for me. If an animal is shot through the intestines, I suggest gutting it ASAP if you intend to prepare the meat for consumption or storage.
 
Always wait till I get home. Snip tail with side cuts. Use a skinning hook to hang them by back legs, and pull skin down to neck turning it inside out. Keeps hair off meat. Remove head at neck and drop with body fur. Gut from neck to back and lets guts fall free. After removing feet I put them in a pot of cold water until got them all done. The few hairs that get on the meat I try to rinse when inside and cutting them up.

Hope this helps.
 
I also clean at home but I remove the skin by making a cut in the middle of the squirrel and hooking fingers in on both sides of the cut and then pulling towards the ends. Push legs back through, cut off the feet and leave them attached to the skin. Then I separate the legs and the back portion of the back letting the guts, head, and skin fall into a bag for disposal. I don't keep the front of the back or the tiny bit of meat over the ribs. I end up with 5 clean pieces I rinse in water and normally freeze until I accumulate a few. Occasionally there might be a few hairs on the meat but rarely and they normally come off easily in running water.

I carry shopping bags in my backpack to hold squirrels. I dispose of guts in the same bags. No need for a more expensive freezer bag just to carry even cleaned squirrels IMHO.
 
This reminds me of one of my best friends, and hunting buddy. He was the worst squirrel cleaner ever. I used to kid him, that I couldn't tell which squirrels he had cleaned, they were all covered in hair!
I never found the perfect answer, and I tried several cleaning methods. Basically, just go slow, and try to keep the skin away from the meat. As a final cleaning, I would scrub the meat with a stiff brush under running water. The squirrels I clean in the field are either in a stream or pond, where I can keep my hands and the meat reasonably well washed. I finally decided, the meat I gain from squirrel hunting isn't worth the effort, and I have quit hunting them. I ended up with various small game and birds in the freezer, never getting eaten. I put everything in a slow cooker with some veggies, and even my wife declared it almost edible, high praise from her. But I digress, good luck with your squirrel cleaning.
 
Wait tell you get home before you skin, wear gloves like latex , clean the hair off the squirrel after making the cut with knife, and clean the hair off your fingers before you touch the meat, wash the meat with warm water, put squirrel in a bowl fill with cold water add salt to the water and put in frig.
How long and what for?