Deer Hunting Archives - Page 7 of 9

How Much Does Deer Processing Cost

Deer processing cost varies from places to places. Thus, the question, “How much does a deer processing cost?” usually gets an answer of “it depends on” and has become a continuous struggle for everyone. Yes, we are also experiencing the same dilemma as you guys.

This is exactly the reason why we have decided to tackle the issue and somehow address the tight spot so that everyone will be on the same ground, or at least everyone can have a base amount where they can refer their estimates. Let us take guided step by step process for us to get to the best answer together.

How Much Does It Cost?

A lot of establishments charge $70 for their base package which includes skinning, cutting and wrapping. Other places are also within this range; give it more or less five dollar difference. For those of you who are interested in specialty items or has a specific plan for your meat, you may need to pay extra bucks depending on what you want and the size of the deer.

Other Costs to Consider

Skinning

There are a lot of processors who prefer for you to leave your deer whole and still with skin due to sanitation issues. Unwanted remains such as hair are very hard to get off especially when the deer has dug its nails in, and most of these processors do not want any traces of hair anywhere near your meat. Again, this is still business, and they value their clients’ feedback and satisfaction.

This is their way of protecting their business’ names. However, there are also establishments and deer processors, especially those with small processing sites and do not have enough storage facilities which require their customers to have it skinned beforehand and will only charge them for cleaning fee of at least $15.

Skinning alone would require you to pay $22 minimum. This is the reason why a lot of hunters skin their deer or take advantage of the packages offered by most processors which already includes skinning as part of the whole amount they are paying for.

The Usual Extras

Going into a processor site will not only require you to bring with you your hunt. It also requires one to decide what other services you would want for the processor to do for you and for you to decide what you want to spend, if any, on extras. To be able to determine these things beforehand will allow you to save more time instead of wasting few minutes deciding which one to get while on the counter.

Considering these things before going to the processing site will also result for you to avoid impulsive decision making which you will regret once the bill comes in. So, it is always better to think things ahead of time to avoid regretting and to save time and money.

Summer Sausage

Who does not want to always have a grip on this all-time favorite? Yes, we are in the same boat here. I also want to have a taste of jalapeño and cheese summer sausage! However, you have to consider that having your whole deer be processed into a sausage will be too costly for one (unless, money is not issue). The average cost of summer sausage is around $3 per pound. So, you might want to take a pause for this one and give yourself some time to think it through.

You can also watch the video:

Venison Bacon

Yeah, I know by only talking about this right now you are starting to drool, and you want to have taste of venison bacon. NOW. FAST. However, let me stop you right there and remind you that before you can have your venison bacon in your little Lala land, you have to pay around $4 per pound. Oh, did I pop your bubble? Opps!

Burger

Now, having your venison grind is very affordable. A lot of processors only charge $0.50 per pound to ground and bag your meat. So, call your friends now and prepare for a grand burger party!

Jerky

A lot of processors are going the extra mile, and they offer special jerky preparations. In fact, most of these processors offer steak jerky and flavored jerky. The most common flavors are Teriyaki, Jalapeño, Black paper, and BBQ. There is also a variety of spiciness offers that one can choose from mild to hot and spicy.

One thing that one needs to be always reminded about is that most of these processors charge the cost of jerky basing on the raw weight of the meat. The cost is around $4 per pound of raw meat. Then, they will process the meat, season and cook it for you to receive it fully cooked, smoked and ready to eat.

Gentle Reminder

A lot of processors ask for a down payment most of the time. This is something that you should be prepared for since there are also hunters that expect to pay the full amount upon completion of the task. These processors usually ask $40 to $50 down payment or at least 50% of the whole amount to be paid.

Conclusion

Deer processing is a critical thing that one needs to consider especially to those who do not have the time and the expertise to process their deer. Although, a lot of people want to do it their own for them to be assured that they will be getting the meat which they hunted, taking the hunt to the processors will be a great help to ensure cleanliness and quality of the meat.

Basing from the discussions above, processing cost of the deer may take few bucks out from your pocket, but the result is very worthwhile since it does not only provide you with quality meat and other extra items but it also allows you to thoroughly enjoy your hunt after spending effort and energy hunting them. Now, that is what you call maximizing proceeds.

Important Guidelines On How To Successfully Field Dressing A Deer

Many talented hunters don’t know what next to do when they hold their knife after pulling it out to field dress a deer? If you ask any deer butcher you know around, their answer is probably going to be, “Some of them don’t.”

Field dressing is not a favorite activity for the most hunter but lets be honest, it is the responsibility of the most hunter to brilliantly know their way through the innards of a deer.

To make field dressing interesting, hunters need a sharp and durable knife with no less than four inches in length, a large handle and a guard. Small knives tend to go sideways while holding it when it encounters a bone.

In case you don’t know how to go about field dressing a deer and you want to know why, just read further because this article is designed for you

What is field dressing?

Field dressing is an approach employed to detach the inner organs of a hunted game and is very important to preserve the meat.

Field dressing must be completed as quickly as possible so as to prevent microorganisms such as bacteria from developing on the surface of the carcass thereby maintaining the general quality of the meat.

In other words, field dressing reduces the difficulty in carrying large hunting games from the hunting field by hunters

What You’ll Need

There are some necessary tools you will require to make field dressing simple and productive. Not that the equipment listed below are not the only tools to field dress a deer, but you can still achieve your goals if you have them with you. here they are:

Recently sharpened knife
Hunting tag with string already attached
Disposable elastic gloves

Bone saw
Rope
Black colored rag
Large plastic bag

Field Dressing A Deer – Steps to Successfully Field Dress a Deer

Here are some simple approaches to follow in order to make your field dressing task quick, hassle-free and easy.

Step 1: Make Ethical Shots and Fast Recoveries

An accurate shot will guarantee a perfect kill and quick recovery, which is imperative for a few reasons. For starters, broadheads, and bullets punching through guts, the stomach is not pretty much pleasant for the flesh.

When shots are not very much placed from the beginning, you are often compelled to give the animal a chance to sit for a few hours or also overnight prior to tracking, which can bring about real issues.

Step 2: Be Prepared and Have the Right Gears

Being sorted out, prepared and owning the right gears for the task will spare you a lot of time and trouble.

A good field-dressing kit should include several sets of latex gloves, two vast Ziploc cooler sacks, one sharp knife, a collection of wet-wipes and some sturdy paper towels.

A knife that has a gut-hook truly is amazing, since it can carefully open up the deer’s skin like a zipper without having to puncture the innards or stomach.

A serrated blade is also good for cutting through the breast bone in order to easily open up the chest cavity for speedier cooling.

Step 3: Position The Deer Correctly

When you have all your gears laid out and prepared, carefully let the deer be on its back and then spread the hind legs of the deer.

If possible, try and position the deer’s head gently uphill so as to enable gravity to work well for you. Keeping the head of the deer uphill will permit the deer to drain properly while making it quite convenient to take off the organs.

Step 4: Make an Exact Cut

If it is a buck, begin at the bottom and cut off the gonads and reproductive organ.

However, for a doe, you will have to remove the udder first. And the, use the hole deserted as your next section point.

When utilizing a knife with a gut-snare, just embed the tip and carefully pull up the handle toward the chest of the deer.

With a standard knife, just insert the tip into the deer’s skin and start cutting upward till you get to the breastbone area.

Keep the tip of the knife pointing upward at an angle in order to abstain from puncturing the stomach, intestines or guts.

Step 5: Disconnect The Trachea

When you get to the breastbone, use the serrated part of your knife to cut through the inside. Then dip your hand into the throat region of the deer so as to discover the trachea tube. After that, utilize your hand to cut and disengage the trachea. Then start pulling down the tube toward the deer’s bottom.

Step 6: Remove All Organs and Entrails

As you are working the trachea tube towards down, start sawing all linking tissue to the entrails and organs. This will allow you to haul everything out in just one piece.

When doing the work from the top to the bottom, the lungs and heart will leave the chest section initially followed by the stomach, guts and some other organs of the downward cavity.

After completing that, go back to where you started working between the back legs and start cutting straight downward through the meat till you reach the bottom. With the pelvis opened up already, you can now carefully cut off the bladder and lower part of the intestine.

Step 7: Flip, Drain and Maintain

After you have safely taken off all organs and entrails, carefully flip the deer backward, spread out the legs and then let it drain for a couple of minutes.

During warm-weather conditions or early-season hunts, most hunters like going ahead and cutting out the inward tenderloins and place them in a Ziploc cooler packs from their kit.

Conclusion

It is highly essential that you field dress your deer at the earliest possible time so as to prevent damage from going near the meat.

The approaches required in properly field dressing a deer can change depending upon preferred procedures, however, the steps above are a proven approach to doing it carefully and with negligible cuts required.

We believe that you found this content to be of great importance to you as you seek after your hunting objectives.

Have other techniques for field dressing a deer or have questions regarding any of the steps above? Feel free to tell us by leaving a comment below!

How Much Meat From a Deer – Quick and Easy Way to Estimate Venison Yields

For most hunters, the venison acquired during a hunt is a bonus to the thrill of the hunt itself. If you’re working with limited space in your freezer, and most of us are, a vital question to answer is “how much meat from a deer?” Read on, and soon you’ll be an expert in figuring out how much venison you’ll be able to get from that beautiful whitetail you just harvested.

So, How Much Venison am I Getting?

For our purposes here, all of these calculations will concern lean, boneless venison. If you leave the fat on the meat or make “chops” which include the bone you’ll have more overall weight but in the end, the amount of meat will be pretty much the same.

As a general rule of thumb, you’re most likely to get a bit under fifty percent of the field dressed weight of the deer.

If you’re on your first hunt, you might be surprised to know that the average buck weighs around a hundred and fifty pounds or so, while does will mostly range about a hundred pounds. The average weight can go up by about twenty pounds or so depending on the area you’re hunting in, but whitetail really aren’t that large of an animal.

Bigger bucks can weigh up to three hundred pounds, of course, but despite the tall tales of hunters these fabled bucks aren’t the kind you’ll be bringing in every season, especially as a beginner. They’re usually the ones who all the hunters in the area have seen or heard of but no one has managed to harvest just yet.

In general, field dressing will remove about thirty percent of the weight of the deer. For those unfamiliar, this would include gutting the deer to remove the innards before packing them out. The actual percentage will vary from deer to deer, but thirty percent is a fairly safe estimate for most deer.

If that sounds like a lot of math to you, then don’t worry too much about it. Essentially you can estimate the venison yield of a deer at around thirty to forty percent of its live weight.

The Flaw of Crunching the Numbers

While we could certainly give you an equation for the amount of venison you’ll receive from a deer, and we will, there’s a lot of additional factors which will come into play in the real world. It’s rarely as simple as whipping out your calculator and knowing how much meat you’ll have.

There’s going to be waste, no matter how good of a butcher you are. Improper here and there during the butchering process can take a few percentile points off of the meat you’re harvesting, you may trim too close to the meat and shave some off while you’re trimming the fat, and there will be some accidents pretty much no matter what.

With a bit of practice, there’s no need to send your deer off to the butcher, however. Most of us are competent enough to be able to handle the task ourselves.

The actual musculature of the deer itself will certainly have a lot to do with it as well, some deer will just be “buffer” and have more meat and less fat while others might be pleasantly plump which imparts some extra flavor but will lower the overall yield once the fat is cut away.

Essentially, no matter how complex of an equation you use to determine the exact weight of the venison you’ll be stuffing away at home you’re still making a rough estimation.

FURTHER READING➜ How Fast Can A Deer Run – How Hard Would It Be To Catch A Frightened Deer On The Run➜ How To Attract Deer Fast- 6 Steps That Will Have You Attracting Whitetail Like A Pro➜ How To Get Deer To Come To You In 6 Easy Steps

Let’s Get to the Math

Using the figures we’ve applied so far, we can come up with a pretty simple equation to give you an estimate of how much meat you’ll receive from the deer in question:

(Full Weight*.7)*.45 = Weight of Lean, Boneless Venison

We used .45 because the figure is usually estimated to be between forty and fifty percent of the field dressed weight of the deer.

You can also work this equation in reverse if you’re looking to brag about how big the buck you shot was, but it’s best to weigh the deer while its field dressed and add the extra thirty percent since wastage during the butchering process will mess with your calculations for the live weight.

Alright Poindexter, Just Give Me an Average

If you’re disinclined to use math at all, well, your average buck is going to give you between 45 and 65lbs of meat once cleaned. This figure can vary quite a bit, and it’s probably a good idea to make sure you have room for about 65lbs of meat to be stored per tag you intend to use during the season.

Does will yield around 30 to 40lbs of venison once cleaned due to their smaller size.

Conclusion

There you go, you now have the tools to know how much meat from a deer you’ll be able to get this upcoming season. The truth is, you’re better off with averages if you’re calculating how much you can store, and the main use of these equations is probably bragging rights to calculate how much the entire deer weighed when it was still alive. Either way, happy hunting!

Did you enjoy our article? Have some questions or comments? Let us know below!

FAQ

How much meat do you get from a 130 pound deer?

Much of the deer’s meat is in the form of muscle, with smaller amounts in organs and fat.A 130-pound deer will yield about 40 pounds (0.9 kg) of edible meat. This break down would be 30% in visible, lean tissue like steaks and roasts; 25% in ground products like hamburger; 20% fats; 15% bone products; 5% other, including offal or organ meats; and 1/2 lb (225g) sinew for use as seasoning/wrapping materials. The offal, tendons, hearts, brains etc., are often turned into sausage or chitterlings.”

How much is a whole deer worth in meat?

A whole deer is worth anywhere from $50 to $70 per pound for meat.Information to include in the answer: Anywhere from $0.55 – 0.65 per ounce depending on the weight of the animal, whether its male or female, what it’s cut up into, etc.The average weight for a deer is 350 pounds with around 181-182 pounds being usable flesh which would mean about 1/4 of one deer can be turned into cooked meat at 12 lbs per person which would provide 36-48 servings if fully petted by hand and processed in strips after cooking – enough for 18-27 people with plenty left over!

Is deer meat healthy for you?

Yes, as long as it’s pastured and grass fed.

Deer meat is a lean form of protein with lower levels of saturated fat than beef. Grass-fed deer meat typically contains less total fat and less cholesterol than grain-fed beef, and it tastes much finer (some people even say “gourmet”). It’s healthier and contains more benefits.

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