Anyone else butcher?

[Daveboone]

I will never forget ...first, the shock on my dads face when I brought home the first deer I shot at 16, then his ...exasperation with butchering it! It was the first deer taken in my family. Many, many more followed. I thoroughly enjoy butchering them, but will happily drop it off at my meat processor if the temps are in the forties or greater. By myself, I can usually go from hung deer to skinned, quartered, butchered and packaged deer in about four hours....usually the wife helping if asked, but always with the packaging. I have done several bears too....very similar processs.

 

[Tra3]

I will never forget ...first, the shock on my dads face when I brought home the first deer I shot at 16, then his ...exasperation with butchering it! It was the first deer taken in my family. Many, many more followed. I thoroughly enjoy butchering them, but will happily drop it off at my meat processor if the temps are in the forties or greater. By myself, I can usually go from hung deer to skinned, quartered, butchered and packaged deer in about four hours....usually the wife helping if asked, but always with the packaging. I have done several bears too....very similar processs.

May I venture a guess:
Getting out butchering equipment, setup and then cleaning items: 45-60 min
Skinning: 10 min
Quartering: 20-30 min
Deboning: 45 min
Cut and wrap: 45 min
Cleaning: 60 min

Nearly 50% of the time is getting stuff out, cleaning, then cleaning and putting away.
If we only had a ceiling hook in the kitchen and a floor drain (also in the kitchen) our lives would be so much easier.

 

[CBH Australia]

Dillion, I also butcher most deer myself and also most bear. However, I don’t do as good a job as nearby Game processor - don’t have a good grinder for hamburger and don’t cut the roasts properly, and don’t have good shrink wrap machine.....so some meat gets wasted or used for bait on my trapline. Also, I don’t have a walk in cooler so if weather is hot I can’t process it fast enough - or am too busy still hunting.
When I get a really big buck or bear - it goes to the processor, sort of my “treat” for getting a nice trophy.

If you are still busy hunting then life is good. Do what you are good at.

Bob Nelson, how long does it take to dress and butcher a Kangaroo?

 

[Ridge Runner]

I’ve butchered our animals as well for years, sometimes it’s hard to let age with temperatures, timeline etc. This Year I was able to let deer age for a week. Just wondering do you find a big difference in quality of meat? Taste?

By butchering animals myself I can let them hang, weather permitting for 1-3 days, by removing pretty much all the silver skin and sinew the meat becomes much more tender and tastier.

Like many have commented I know the animal I'm processing myself is mine and I'm getting all the meat.

I have used 3 different processors in the past and wasn't happy with the results.

 

[Reed Thoma Outdoors]

Just butchered a buck this morning

 

[DPHunter4570]

We butchered 15 deer today, taken by the the hunters in our camp during last weekends Illinois gun season. Ranged from small does to a couple big mature bucks. They hung in our cooler for a week, then we reconvene to cut them up. Tenderloins and backstraps go to the respective deer hunter, the sausage meat and steaks get totaled up and divvied out equally so all the hunters get a share. Something like 330 pounds of sausage meat and 75 pounds of steak I think.

We'll get back together in February for sausage making day, make a ton of sausage, hang it in the old smokehouse to cure, and have a good supply. Then we usually make brats and other things in March.

 

[buffybr]

I've been butchering my own animals since I shot my first deer back in 1965. In '66 my 3 college roommates and I cut, double hand ground, and wrapped 4 bull elk.

The butchering times that Tra3 posted might be true for a whitetail deer or pronghorn antelope, but they don't come close to the time it takes to do a bull elk or moose. I used to be able to cut up and wrap a bull elk in 2 very long days, then double grind and wrap the burger in a 3rd day. Now I figure one quarter of an elk per day then a fifth day for the burger. I'm VERY picky about my wild meat, and I trim off everything white, even for my burger meat.

My only animal that I didn't cut up myself was my American Buffalo that I took to a local butcher shop. Two weeks later I brought home 495 pounds of frozen packages of burger and a box of the tenderloin and backstrap steaks and roasts.

 

[Tra3]

I've been butchering my own animals since I shot my first deer back in 1965. In '66 my 3 college roommates and I cut, double hand ground, and wrapped 4 bull elk.

The butchering times that Tra3 posted might be true for a whitetail deer or pronghorn antelope, but they don't come close to the time it takes to do a bull elk or moose. I used to be able to cut up and wrap a bull elk in 2 very long days, then double grind and wrap the burger in a 3rd day. Now I figure one quarter of an elk per day then a fifth day for the burger. I'm VERY picky about my wild meat, and I trim off everything white, even for my burger meat.

My only animal that I didn't cut up myself was my American Buffalo that I took to a local butcher shop. Two weeks later I brought home 495 pounds of frozen packages of burger and a box of the tenderloin and backstrap steaks and roasts.

And elk is definitely a much larger task. If an average whitetail deer produces 50 lbs of meat, an average a cow elk is 150+. A bull is a magnitude larger!

One tip to consider: a bathtub with kindling sized wood on the bottom for drainage, topped with elk quarters in game bags, then topped with 100lbs+ of ice works as a great “cooler” when you don’t have one. An elk just won’t fit in a standard fridge when one is hunting away from home.

 

[deewayne2003]

My cousin and I got motivated this past weekend and went broke out the meat grinder and vacuum sealer.

3 whole whitetail doe + 2 hind quarters from a buck.

Tenderloins - brush with olive oil and season with sea salt, black pepper, minced garlic and dried onion flake. Vacuum seal and wet age in fridge for 7days before freezing.

Back straps - Cleaned and vacuum sealed then aged 7 days in fridge before freezing.

4 Hind quarters ground into chili meat with 10% bacon trimmings.

4 Hind quarters cut into frying meat and tenderized before vacuum sealing and freezing.

4lbs of jerky made.

 

[Kalthoff]

Nearly 50% of the time is getting stuff out, cleaning, then cleaning and putting away.
If we only had a ceiling hook in the kitchen and a floor drain (also in the kitchen) our lives would be so much easier.

After messing with a few roe deer on a kitchen table, I installed a solid hook in a ceiling beam in the middle of the kitchen, within reach of both a table and a sink.

That has generated the best return on investment by far, of anything I have done hunting related.

The deer is suspended by a chain and two meat hooks. This makes it easy to adjust the working height. For heavier species than roe deer, a mechanical winch comes in handy.

I put a wide plastic tray underneath to catch most of the drips and splashes and to throw unwanted bits into.

Then it is a reasonably clean and efficient process to pull off the skin and then cut off the venison piece by piece and place on the kitchen table.

The kitchen sink is one step away and I have laid out a handful of knives in advance, so it is no chore to maintain cleanliness throughout the process.

At the end of it, the bones and other refuse goes into a plastic bag, that is taken strait to the garbage bin outdoors. This if followed by a general clean up of the area, myself etc. and airing out of the room.

Then on to de-boning, weighting and packaging.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

If you are still busy hunting then life is good. Do what you are good at.

Bob Nelson, how long does it take to dress and butcher a Kangaroo?

@CBH Australia
How long is a piece of string mate.
Depends on the person.
TAKING ALL the silver and sinues off the meat so you can mince it takes a while. If you don't it WILL CLOG up your mincer really quickly.
The skinning is relativly quick. The bone structure in the hip area makes boning a bit fiddly.
Bob

 

[Tra3]

After messing with a few roe deer on a kitchen table, I installed a solid hook in a ceiling beam in the middle of the kitchen, within reach of both a table and a sink.

That has generated the best return on investment by far, of anything I have done hunting related.

The deer is suspended by a chain and two meat hooks. This makes it easy to adjust the working height. For heavier species than roe deer, a mechanical winch comes in handy.

I put a wide plastic tray underneath to catch most of the drips and splashes and to throw unwanted bits into.

Then it is a reasonably clean and efficient process to pull off the skin and then cut off the venison piece by piece and place on the kitchen table.

The kitchen sink is one step away and I have laid out a handful of knives in advance, so it is no chore to maintain cleanliness throughout the process.

At the end of it, the bones and other refuse goes into a plastic bag, that is taken strait to the garbage bin outdoors. This if followed by a general clean up of the area, myself etc. and airing out of the room.

Then on to de-boning, weighting and packaging.

That is brilliant! And faster than ceiling hooks in the garage that require two locations of setup and cleanup.
There is close to zero chance that I would get approval from my spouse for a kitchen based ceiling hook in my current house. I’m envious!

I really enjoy butchering. It is the penultimate task in a successful hunt. My very close friends/family that can’t hunt anymore usually get primo cuts. My godfather is too infirm to hunt and delights in choice backstrap and tenderloin gifts. He gently cooks them to a cold center with only salt and pepper. Watching someone enjoy a venison gift puts honor to the efforts of a hunt.

 

[Stephen Ausband]

Yep. I'm not good at it, and I'm sure we lose some of the meat and can't do the nice cuts that some of the professionals do. But the meat is all ours, we do it all ourselves, and the results are wonderful. This buck was aged for about a week, gave up his back straps, tenderloins, some other chunks, and a lot of ground venison, and he will be enjoyed, appreciated, and toasted for many weeks this winter. We had venison from him tonight for supper. Venison is a sacrament, from field to table. Hunters and real lovers of the outdoors will understand.

 

[TXhunter65]

Yep.

 

[Woodcarver]

From this...

to this....

only takes about 15-20 minutes. This is what I have after 14 days of aging.

No way I'd take any of my game to a processor. About 35 years ago, my then FIL insisted we take 2 cow elk (big, not shot up) to a local processor. When we picked the ~200# of meat he claimed was all he could "salvage" off them, I swore, never again.
Every thing gets a minimum of 9-10 days of aging, most get closer to 14 days. These modern expensive coolers really prove their value for this (mine are Cabelas brand). All sinew, tallow, and bone is removed. Coupled with trying to get the carcass nekkid within the 1st hour or two of being shot, there is no "gamey" taste when served on the table. I pretty much cut steaks from everything but the lower legs. This antelope yielded a little over 7# of grinder meat, and 32# of steaks. The dogs were quite happy to dispose of all the bones for me.

 

[leslie hetrick]

yep, we do just about all the deer we harvest, unless its clost to zero degrees.

 

[steve white]

View attachment 570874
THIS is my kind of "trophy"
I've done all my own meat processing since I started hunting more than 50 years ago. It helps that my Dad was butcher, and my Grandfather, and my Great grandfather... We have always had a "meat kitchen" set up on the family farm. My brother carries on that tradition and I'm very fortunate that I get to use it. Walk in cooler, and commercial grade equipment - saws, grinder, mixer, smoke house. Butchering and preparing sausage etc. with my family is a big part of the whole hunting experience for me. I would feel odd taking my game to a commercial butcher, it just wouldn't feel right. When I'm in camp on safari, I'm always hanging out with the skinners and butchers to see how they do it. Have to suppress and urge to join in, but they have their job to do and as client hunter I have mine.

View attachment 570875

this old cast iron winch has been lifting animals for my family for more than a century

View attachment 570878View attachment 570880
We have our own recipes for sausage that have been handed down and fine tuned over the generations. My sons and wife join in too!
View attachment 570881View attachment 570883View attachment 570884

Man, that's professional!

 

[AustinL]

We do all of our own between the family we tend to process 15+ deer each year. As they are shot we skin quarter and age. What is typically our drink fridge gets relegated to this duty. We will package and freeze all scrap for grind during the season and then break out the grinder after the season and make burger, summer sausage, smoked sausage and jerky

 

[steve white]

Well, I misquoted my friend who aged an old wild hog into pork chops with no gamey taste. I thought he aged it 10 days to 2 weeks--yesterday he corrected me and said it was aged in a commercial cooler at 41degrees F for a little over a month! Turned out great, and we all know how rank an old boar can be otherwise....
Soooo, I'm leaving mine on ice for another 15 days.

 

[DillonG]

I can say the Mrs shot her first deer. It has been a very tough season for us. We have been dealing with a lot of Chicago types taking up land around us. So, our strategy was to play the wind and avoid the pressure. We butchered her deer and I helped out my uncle with his BIG 197lbs, field dressed buck. Picture of my wife’s first kill to follow.