CWLONGSHOT
Well-Known Member
I have done many road kills too. Couple local troopers have my number and call when they have no other. Nothingbis wasted in nature. WE ARE part of NATURE!
I'll be the first to say it. I'd take take a head/neck hit doe any day of the week even if I made 900k per year!.Say what you will, ..
@L Ross, that is a very professional job of butchery. That comes from a former professional butcher.I'm weird. I enjoy every aspect from field dressing to grinding the fat for the birds. Many of my friends and my BIL and I take great pride in doing a thorough and clean job, with little waste. My wife used to help cut but spends so much of her time up in the kitchen canning venison she no longer cuts much. She told me this year, that since her brother started coming down here to hunt and helps cut meat her days are not nearly as exhausting as they used to be.
I skin all of the deer within an hour from the time it hits the ground and I used the forks on my Kubota. I have a bracket that clamps on a fork tip with a grab hook on it. I wrap a light chain just under the ears. Skin down the neck, split the leg skin, saw all four legs off below the shanks, and tuck a rock or a golf ball under the loose neck hide. Tie a rope around the golf ball over the hide and tie the other end to the ball hitch on a convenient pick up truck. Lift the forks and peel the hide off like a glove. I lower the deer so it just clears under the lean to roof on the shed. There I have 4 chains prepositioned and a step ladder. I drive under the rafter, raise the deer. My BIL is up on the ladder and hooks a neck chain onto a rafter chain and I lower the forks and disconnect. So fast, so very fast. Then we prop open the chest with a stick to help the heat escape. The next morning after breakfast we start cutting. One before lunch, one after lunch. By the time I'm done with the second one my back is complaining. We put cutting boards on an old school lunch table that has risers under the legs to bring it to a better work height. We have a spare fridge, a spare freezer, a big old Toledo Scale Co. grinder, a sausage stuffer, a tape machine, bags for burger and sausage, a sausage mixer, large stainless bowls, a roll of plastic wrap that we have had since the 1980's, a roll of freezer paper on a dispenser, even a swiss steak tenderizer. I touch up our knives every few minutes and now my BIL has picked up the touch up technique and does a nice job on his blades.
Depending on how many deer we have to do, (three this year, my brother hauled two more to his house), It is a couple of days of pretty continuous work, but so rewarding.
That is because all of the deer meat that is going to be ground is pooled together, ground and then divided up by weight among all the customers in that pool.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.
I would add an item to your must have tools: a steel for keeping the edge sharp on your knives.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.
If that was the case, I wouldn't use that particular butcher. I've had deer done by multiple processors. The only time the meat is pooled is if you request sausage...............and they tell you up front. I like every cut of venison, so I never have sausage made.That is because all of the deer meat that is going to be ground is pooled together, ground and then divided up by weight among all the customers in that pool.
Your deer is not individually processed when it comes to that which is ground, made into sausage etc. The steaks, roasts, etc. probably are individually processed.
I had an idea for putting a grab hook on a fork. I talked to one of my buddies who is a good welder and fabricator, he made up his idea of what it should be like. I find it to be a little over engineered, but never look a gift horse....... The second grab hook got clamped beneath the ball hitch when I needed to lift something heavy in a straight line. The one off the side of the bracket is the one I typically use. Of course the ball hitch is handy if you have to maneuver a trailer into a really tight space.@L Ross, that is a very professional job of butchery. That comes from a former professional butcher.
I have a Kubota as well. I am interested in that "bracket that clamps a fork tip with a grab hook on it". Tell us where to get one. A photo would be immensely helpful.
Thanks, Rocky
I think the only difference between what I do and the ice chest might be air circulation? I have no idea if that matters. But Nov 15 (gun season in MI) through the 30th, there is always good weather for hanging for 5 days. I do it in my garage.For you guys who hang them for a week like I hear about, I've been wondering. My usual routine when I do this is to get it dressed, back to the house, skinned, quartered and in a big ice chest I have, then ice it all down and get to cutting and packaging, usually takes a few days of working in the evenings between work and when I get sleepy. I have one in the ice chest now, it got up to about 50 yesterday, but still everything ewas covered in ice. That has to be colder than a refrigerator, but not frozen, obviously. Seems like this would be accomplishing the same thing as hanging the deer if I understand it correctly?