Deer butchering, who does their own?

[Dimner]

How many of you guys here butcher your own deer? Is there anyone who doesn't that would like to learn?

I have a buddy that deer hunted the first time this year, scored a really nice "basket ball" rack 8 pointer. Nice chocolate antlers. Don't see those too often. Anyway, he was in a 'yank' as we call it, and didn't want to spend the time learning to butcher this year. Totally understandable, this was all a last minute thing for him. However, I get a text a day or so later and the processing cost is $265!!

Now, I've never turned a deer into a processor, always thought it was 80-125 bucks. But $265.is awfully close to an 8lb jug of powder! That's how my mind works with 'funny money' purchasing. How much powder, molds, bullets, primers, lead, or old timey rifle could I buy if I didn't make XYZ purchase.

So for those of you who send it to a processor, would you like to learn? And those of you who butcher your own, do you want to pool our methods and tips?

If ya want I can write up the way I do it. And if you really want, I can add pics if I get another one later this week.

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

I have since I was a boy. Dad did before me and Grandpa before him.

Forum is kooky again. Four diff pics chosen. But it duplicated two and deleted rest...

 

[L Ross]

Been butcherin' deer since I was 12. My Mom and I skinned my Dad's frozen buck in 1966 on the farm house kitchen table. You aint never seen a carcass with more hair on it than that one. I have gotten better.

Deer and pigs are a piece of cake. Bison, now there's a job!

 

[Winelover]

Have done a couple, out of necessity. Rather pay a professional. The trouble with Arkansas is that your fighting rapidly warming temperatures. Last thing, I want to do, is process a deer after hunting, field dressing and dragging it back to camp...............then have to immediately skin and quarter, cause temperatures are too warm to let it hang.




Found a new guy, last year. Did a fantastic job at $85. He use to work for another guy that has a shingle out, further down the road. As luck would have it, he decided to build a new house, in a different area. He took his refrigeration unit to the new build but having issues with getting building materials, due to Covid. So he's not doing processing this year. So, I had to take it to his mentor, down the road. He also did a nice job but the price increased to $100.............I use to pay that in Michigan, fifteen years ago. Both guys put the various cuts of meat in Zip Loc bag, before wrapping with freezer paper. When you unthaw the meat, no blood leaks though the freezer paper. Both guys do such a nice job, that we haven't found a stray piece of hair or silver skin. Worth it to me, to bring it home, already frozen and labeled. YMMV.

 

[Wiresguy]

Dad and his brothers always took their South Texas deer to a processor, so I didn't learn from them how to butcher a deer. They knew how, but having been raised on a farm, I think they didn't want to mess with it anymore.

After I left home and hunted in Oregon and Alaska, I learned how to do it myself.

Using a small chain saw with cooking oil in place of bar / chain oil, it was pretty quick to split a spike elk in two. I was quite a bit younger looking in this 1983 photo

 

[richhodg66]

It's about 50/50 myself or pprocessors. A lot depends on how beat I am, weather, availability of processors, etc. Last year, it seemed all the processors I knew of had quit. Had to look around yesterday for one. The two I shot yesterday were very early morning so I was fresh and had day light to do the work. Also real cold, I don't think it got above freezing, I did have one processed, the other is quartered out in an ice chest now, I'll get it cut up and packaged this week.

 

[RBHarter]

Hogs on a paid hunt are the only thing that I've paid someone else to do. That was only skin quarter and freeze .

Been butchering my own and family since my Dad got me started cleaning trout when I was 8-9 .

Had it down to cut , wrap , and in the freezer in about 4 hr for 180# hanging mulie . About another hour for the grind .

Took me 4-5 hours to get that whitetail done but I skinned it on the carport floor as I didn't have anything else set up to do one at the time .

 

[Cadillac Jeff]

Never hired cutting up a deer, I would be afraid if I did , the old guy that taught me how might show up and stomp me azz. Lol I'm thinking he might be 90 or so now tho.

Jeff

 

[Michael]

I have (almost) always done my own. Being retired now, no reason not to all the time. Wife has a cow elk tag to fill, processing that on our own will be a new adventure.

 

[Ian]

I do my own. I hate it. Never any time to hang them, it's either 80 or 20, neither extreme works. Gut them in the field, get them home, skin, quarter, cut the backstraps and tenderloins, dispose of the hide, leg ends, head and torso skeleton (usually bury it if disposing at home). After 5-7 days at 37F, or when it just begins to stink, I spend the hours and hours and hours to cut up the quarters, remove as much silver skin as possible, and end up with small steaks, grilling cutlets, and stew chunks. I hate the processing so much and don't like whitetail enough to have even bothered killing one in close to ten years with the exception of a tiny little spike buck that literally walked in front of my 100-yard target, he didn't even make it to the freezer and was all eaten up in a week.

Field dressing, skinning, and quartering is easy and fast, it's the rest of it that is absolute misery for me. I'd gladly pay someone to handle that part after I did the aging.

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

We often make a day of it and get a couple buddies. One year three of us did nearly a dozen deer. We got quite efficient everyone was experienced and knew what/how to cut. We even had a couple wives there cooking fresh loins for dinner that night! My buddy and I didnt take two hours last Sunday doing that one.




CW

 

[JWFilips]

In the 1990's I decided to do all of my Flintlock kills myself! FIL had a large garage and I Would pulled them up on the beams With his pulleys!
Had an 8 foot table and big cutting boards back then! Used everything I could ! Hide was bark tanned Brains were used for brain tanning. all meat was cut up and mostly deboned! Made gun Racks out of the legs and sold them. The sinew I used as thread after drying....Fat was ground up for birds...and I doubt I ever made more then a pound or two of ground up meat! That is not tasty! Did about 5 of these! Did I have experience....hell no! All's I know is meat is meat and you can't ruin it! Well maybe if you cook it to long!!! Not hunting again at 70 not sure I have the stamina! Back then it took near 2 days for me with knives Cutting &
Hauling the cut meat over next door to my wife to wrap and label!
I envy you guys! If I Take my deer to the processors I get 50% of what I would get doing it Myself

 

[fiver]

used to have a guy that'd do it for 30 bucks.
then the local grocer would do them for airc 75 or so.
you skinned them yourself to save a few bucks though.

now i just cut my own.
make sausage or steaks or roasts or [mostly] burger with [free] beef fat added in.
we have an assembly line set up now and everyone has a specific job so it goes along super fast.
it's about an hour and a half from the first cut to the freezer per deer, unless were doing sausage.

 

[richhodg66]

Seems most processers make a lot of money making it into jerky, beer sticks, etc. We like it as meat and when I do it, all our ground is pure, I don't mix any fat into it. I have asked processers to do it pure and usually they mix fat into it anyway.

Our muzzle loader season is way early (September) and we have an antlerless segment of three days in early October. THose are very good times to take one to a processer, both because of the heat and also because not many guys are hunting then, so the deer you bring to the processer is prbably getting more attention and quality control. The one I went to yesterday had an awfull lot of deer waiting for them to get to and a lot of hides and bones out in dumpsters from ones they've already done. Never used this particular one, guess we'll find out of they're any good.

 

[Dimner]

I never even thought about how good I have it. Most of Michigan's hunting season allows for a hunter to age his deer for quite a few days.

I've never done ground. I always de-bone everthing and anything that's too small for stew gets combined together for slow cooked sandwiches or dehydrated jerky. Or most likely, fed to the golden that sits loyaly by my side while I process at the dining room table.

Four tools that are 100% imperative to sanity while butchering deer:

Block and tackle with brake
Old hickory skinning knife
Fillet knife (I use the same one I use for fishing)
Vacuum sealer

Cost saving tips:
Buy your vacuum sealer bags by the roll in bulk on Amazon.
Buy a dozen of those cheap flimsy plastic cutting boards and layer on the table.

One last sanity tip:
Audio books.

Keeping fingers from getting cold while skinning tips:
Gardening gloves
Vise grips or channel locks to pull down the hide while skinning.

 

[todd]

i used to do my own, but my dang stroke won't let me. now my brother does it or i have to it to a deer processor and $65.

the hardest thing to do is skin them out before the deer get cold. when it gets cold, i use the golf ball and utv. usually, in my shed i have a game gambrel with hooks to skin my deer. don't forget a meat grinder and a vacuum sealer, they save your life.

 

[RicinYakima]

I have so many friends that kill game, have it processed but the wife doesn't like "gamy" meat. So I get almost all I want. Had elk taco soap the other night. The "good" stuff goes somewhere else, but burger is fine with me.

 

[JustJim]

I used to have an '87 Toyota pickup we put a flatbed on. That flatbed was used to process a couple dozen deer and antelope over the years. I'd flip 'em on their side, skin and bone out the side, then turn 'em over and do the other side. After my truck finally died, I built a table that height.

We never did a lot of ground venison, but since we did on-farm butchering for ourselves, we had a grinder. I think it is currently running off an 8 1/2 hp 4 cycle engine. Grinding never took up much time.

 

[Missionary]

We also do our own... nothing hard about it.

 

[Bret4207]

I would rather do a pig than a deer. I can't put my finger on the difference, but it is what it is. Maybe it's the lack of hair? We have a lot of "processors" around here. Best bet is to go to a place that processes year round, that uses a commercial vacuum sealer and that gets the sinew/silver side/etc off the meat. I've seen people pay for "processing" and end up with hair covered, dirty meat. I've also seen people try hanging deer in 40F+ weather. The point between aged and rotted is a matter of hours. I'm no expert, but there is a skill set involved with good butchering that I'd say 99% of the people attempting it lack. I certainly do!

The vast majority of the deer I've cut up have been road kill. Say what you will, but when you have a nice, fat dry doe that's been hit in the head by a bumper, no locals that want it...well, Troopers families have to eat too and back then I was making $20k a year. A lot of those deer you took the backstraps and hind quarter and that was it because a lot of them had damage up front. They fed out good though. Cutting up just the hind quarters is a breeze compared to trying to bone out the front half IME.