DIY butcher or do you pay?

[caleb7mm]

I de-bone and steak all of them myself. all the trimmings get wrapped for stew meat. we dont grind anything.

[PhilNY]

I do it myself, but sometimes it is hard on my arthritic hands so I almost always tag team them with a buddy. We get the grill out and invite the neighbors and or have some friends over to drink beer and eat while we butcher it in the garage. Lots of our friends can't wait till we get a deer just so they can turn it into a little get together.

[Stone Knife]

I just have it done now, hunting season is short so I would rather hunt than process.

[dave19113]

I do my own on whitetails.... but Elk? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

[wingnut]

I've done my own for years and have the machines to make it easy.  BUT when we came home with 500# of boned out Moose a couple weeks ago I started looking at the cost of just the vacumne pack bags.  It was about .24 each for 1# packages.  When I called a very well respected processing plant local he said he'd do it for .52 per pound.  Now I'm not that bright as most know but for the additional .28 per pound I took it in and in 3 days had our moose done and in the freezer.

Mike

[Night Wing]

I have a processor do mine.

[rp65]

I do it my self. It helps that I cut meat for about six years. While I was cutting deer every Fall I got to the piont I couldn't eat the stuff, the smell made sick. The store I worked at did hundreds every fall. Now that I haven't had to cut alot anymore, I started eating it again. I use to make it all into sausage just to eat it, but now eat the back straps, jerky with the hinds, and grind all the rest and use in lots of diffrent meals. All is good now!!

[Bowwild]

I butcher some of mine and pay for others. I typically give 1-2 deer a year to Hunters for the Hungry which must be processed (ground) by a butcher. When its time to keep deer for my use it depends upon how much time I have whether I do it or I have it done.  Getting a deer processed in my area (steaks, roast, and burger) is $85. Of course that's pretty steep for most of our deer. A large doe will likely produce only 40 pounds of vension so I'm paying $2+/pound. An average buck may go 160 field dressed which would produce 80-90 pounds.

[jason1040]

When I was 13 I killed my first elk and my uncle showed me how to butcher it. Since then I have done all of the game that I have killed. I was the only one that hunted in my family and was fortunate to bring home 3 elk and a deer through my teen years. When it came time for butchering it was a family event. I would would make the cuts, my dad and sisters would trim the fat, and mom would wrap.

I did have quite the fight on my hands when my new bride learned about butchering...

I wasn't able to hunt much the first few months of being a newly wed (school and broke) so a friend of mine gave me the front quarter of an elk he shot during muzzle loader season. My wife had expressed that she didn't want to help out in the butchering process - I was totally shocked because I thought that was normal. Well I waited until she was gone for the afternoon to start my dirty work. Being in a college apartment I didn't have much room to work so I had a heck of a time balancing the quarter, making cuts, trimming, and grinding on this tiny counter. Because of those circumstances I was a little messier than normal and my wife came home just as I was finishing. Man was she mad! But the hunting gods were smiling on my situation - because of this she promised that we would get a garage so I could do it out there.

[Bjorn]

Mostly we do our own-there is also an excellent processor near by.
When we have too much we use the local processor.

[xtrema312]

When I was a kid we had ours done by a decent size slaughter house.  They would pull in freezer trailers and do a pile of them for reasonable cost.  They stopped doing it.  We got a couple done here and there, but I never thought they did a good job.  Sometimes I don't think we got all our meat.  Other times a well dressed farm land deer tasted like someone did a pour job of field dressing an old north woods cedar swamp buck; I don't think we got our own deer back.  Then the price went from $30 something to $75 or higher.  I learned from a friend's dad how to do it about 25 years ago and never paid to have one butchered again.  My quality is way up.  No bones, no fat, and no silver skin.  Just top of the line ready to eat every last morsel meat.  I think it really adds to the whole hunting experience and appreciation of the animal.   The kids have been around the process since they could walk and now at 7 and 8 they are starting to help some.  The wife pitches in also with packaging and grinding.   It is getting easier now with the help and we save about $300 a year on processing costs.  That makes it a lot better deal and helps me buy new hunting stuff without complaint.    

The only down side is that I have had to pass on freezer filler meat when it has been real warm and I don't want to go with minimal sleep for the next day if I can't sleep in after getting one trimmed out and in the garage refrigerator.  I really want to find an old freezer condenser or something to make me a small hanging cooler box using some rigid foam insulated panels that I can assemble for hunting season then take appart and store off season.

[John McCreary]

Last year, with my wife, 2 nephews, my bother in law and my self all filling tags, I butchered 7 deer. I think I've cut up 20 deer in the last 5 years. To me it is all part of the "process". Building your own arrows, setting up stands, studying the local food sources the game is using. Boiling the heads and jaw bones. It is all part of the "Process". I want to try brain tanning next...

[chopx2]

Myself unless donated.

[oops29]

have always done my own that way i know what i have. made my own grinder -used a big handgrinder took a motor and reducing pulley off of a drillpress bolted to a piece of old mobile home frame(can you say redneck?) heavy but works great!!

[mookie]

I do my own I took one to a processor wasn't happy with it, if I do my own then no one to blame but myself.

[jcp161]

I take mine to a processor. I have one that I use whenever I'm lucky enough to have something to take and I'm never disappointed. Straight cuts and skinning are around $70. Add a little if you want beef or pork with your ground. Clean, well wrapped and no bones. Well worth the money.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

We kill 4 deer a year here at my house, we butcher 2 or 3, I usually take at least one in. I have a butcher that is crazy about cleanliness, and makes the best sausage ever. If I kill one when it's warm out, that one usually goes to the butcher, because I won't hang them in warm weather. MOST of the deer we kill the weather is well below 40....hang 2 or 3 days and cut 'em up.

[ksbowman]

I always do my own and vacumn seal it.I always know it is my deer and how it was handled.

[bretto]

The last time I took one in was during a rifle season in the early 80's. We backed up to a dock and two guys drug it out of the truck and threw it on a pile of 50-75 deer. Told us we could pick up our meat in 5 days.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say if we got our own deer it was a miracle. Now a days I don't have to guess.

Getting set up isn't that hard. Go together with a couple of friends or family members and buy a grinder and a vacuum sealer. Heck a couple a beers and stories later Your done.

bretto

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Personally I think we are getting ahead of ourselves.    

The only time we took deer in was when we had a lot.  But we cut it up first, they just helped de fat the trimmings and such and also had a huge grinder in the garage.  Took em 20 minutes vs us 3+ hours and only cost us a case of beer.  Helped having friends in the butcher business.

I think they charged 90$ for the whole process start to finish for their customers.