Getting "your" venison back

[ranwin33]

Since I can't say what size of deer your shooting, all I can tell you is that you should be getting back about 55-60% of the field dressed weight, this would be meat and bone that's in steaks and roasts. That's pretty much been the norm for us during the past 9 years of hunting.

[Everyday Hunter]

ORIGINAL: ranwin33

You should expect 55-60% of the field dressed weight back - so if you take a deer in that's been field dressed and it weighs 100 pounds, you should get back 55-60 pounds of meat. 

Figure 40-45% back if you didn't field dress the deer.

So make sure you get the deer weighed at the butchers - and you should have a pretty good idea of what's coming back.

Not to make an argument about this, but if a deer that field-dresses at 100 pounds yields 60 pounds of meat, and his head and hide weigh 20 pounds, that leaves only 20 more pounds of waste. His skeleton weighs more than that. I'd say 60 pounds of meat (without bones) is impossible from a 100 pound deer.  At least, I'd never be able to get that much meat off a 100 pound deer.

Maybe that means no one should ever give me a deer to butcher for them. [:D]

Steve

[Everyday Hunter]

I just weighed some of the scraps from the 114 pound (field-dressed) doe I shot last week:

Head/hide -- 21 pounds
Boned out rib cage (including neck) -- 24 pounds
Boned out front legs (both) -- 7½ pounds
Trimmed fat, silver skin, etc. -- 8 pounds

Right there, that's 61½ pounds. I can't weigh the pelvis and hind legs, because I gave that away. They're definitely more than the front legs, so let's estimate them at 12½ pounds, for a total of 73 pounds of bones and waste. Subtract that from 115, and it leaves 42 pounds of meat.

That's only 36.5% of the field dressed weight. I'm sure some people could salvage more meat by boning it out more meticulously than I do, and some people would not trim away as much of the silver skin and fat as I do. But 55% of 114 pounds would be 63¾ pounds; 60% would be about 68½ pounds. I don't think that's possible with any deer I've ever butchered.

Keep in mind that I butcher a deer with a knife only, leaving "no bones about it." Also keep in mind that if you have your deer processor make jerky, the meat will lose lots of weight in the process of dehydration.

Steve

[fasteddie]

The chart on this site is pretty accurate for estimating edible meat from deer ...........

http://www.whitetails.com/deer_info/wei ... mation.cfm

[ranwin33]

ORIGINAL: Everyday Hunter

ORIGINAL: ranwin33

You should expect 55-60% of the field dressed weight back - so if you take a deer in that's been field dressed and it weighs 100 pounds, you should get back 55-60 pounds of meat. 

Figure 40-45% back if you didn't field dress the deer.

So make sure you get the deer weighed at the butchers - and you should have a pretty good idea of what's coming back.

Not to make an argument about this, but if a deer that field-dresses at 100 pounds yields 60 pounds of meat, and his head and hide weigh 20 pounds, that leaves only 20 more pounds of waste. His skeleton weighs more than that. I'd say 60 pounds of meat (without bones) is impossible from a 100 pound deer.  At least, I'd never be able to get that much meat off a 100 pound deer.

Maybe that means no one should ever give me a deer to butcher for them. [:D]

Steve

We're picking up two deer this weekend - one field dresses at 194 and one field dressed at 179. I let you know what we get back. I just know in the past around 60% is what we'd get.

[ranwin33]

ORIGINAL: fasteddie

The chart on this site is pretty accurate for estimating edible meat from deer ...........

http://www.whitetails.com/deer_info/wei ... mation.cfm

That table works out to around 60% of field dressed weight I think.

Here is another site I found: http://www.askthemeatman.com/how_to_est ... eights.htm

Any which way, all I can say is what we tend to get back, and I can't believe the processor would be giving us extra meat. I'll try to find the sheet on the doe I got earlier this year and will let you know on it as well.

[scotman]

From a deer processors point of view I personally take pictures of deer that have extra waste. It can be caused from a number of things. Old wounds, shot more than once, big boned. Even a a full winter coat can make a deer look bigger than it actually is. Not alot of money in selling vension, if you get caught their are stiff penalties that go along with it.

[DeerCamp]

I process my own deer..I really enjoy it, but I see how one has to make time for it. One thing I have learned over time while processing my own deer is, that their might not be as much meat as I thought. I "nice" size deer can easily only turn into only 30lbs of meat. You have a LOT to remember, the hide, bones,fat, etc....A lot of people tend to forget about this kinda stuff when they get their meat back.

[CB on the run]

Like many of you, I have processed some deer. For the additional 5 or so pounds of meat IMO it's not worth it. I shot a 2 1/2 yr old buck during ML season that dressed out in the 140's. The return was 60 some lbs which I thought was fair. For $65 the processor 'cubed'(ran though a meat tenderizor) all my steaks and add some pork to my hamburg.
The 'tender loins' are located inside the cavity at the rear end and smaller than the backstraps or 'loins' which run along side the spine and can only be removed after the hide. I take my tender loins whole as they are usually only 7-9" in length and have my backstraps 'butterflied'. Good luck to all.

CB

[scotman]

Even when they tag your deer at the processor , I think they do all the burger together

I always do straight burger separate, it would be time consuming to weigh them all out and then reweigh for the right amount. Just easy to debone what they want in burger and run over to the grinder and put it into bags.

But say for instance they are making summer sausage it would take absolutely forever to sort through a thousand deer a year and do them each individually for each order. So what I do is tell the hunter before ordering summer sausage that I will weight your deboned venison before it gets put into sausage add on the extra pork to the weight and charge per pound you get in return. So if they want the front quarters of the deer into sausage I debone the meat weigh it and mark it in a book with the weight, the hunter and tag number. Then I figured out what ratio of pork and tag the pork weight into the final figures. But to split them up individually and add pork is very unrealistic. I make sure to tell them and have a sign posted that they are not getting their deer back when they order any type of sausage or pepper stick.