How much meat?

[Explorer]

I'm curious how much meat you get back from a processor compared to cutting it yourself.. I'm blessed to have a large refer unit and can age and cut my own meat. Never had to pay so wondering what kind of experiences people have had.

[muledeerarea33?]

Have always done my own deer and small animals but 17 or so years ago I had a bison processed by a reputable processor. The meat was good but I don’t believe it was entirely my meat. We opened a few packages of beef cow T-bones even. I’ve done all my own animals since.

[Couzer]

This year we got 126 pounds boned out pure meat off my daughters cow elk and we got 34 lbs boned out pure meat from my boys Coues buck. We do our own processing. I have not noticed a difference in aging so we don't do it.

[oz31p]

We dropped off 4 quarters of a bull a week ago at 205lbs. We got back 150lbs of roasts and ground 

[JSR]

Took 2 WT bucks in to the processor in October. 
Got one box of meat back for $325. The only sausage we had made was 10lb of snack sticks.  5lbs per buck. 
 

I usually do it myself in the garage but it was so hot in October I thought it would be better to just take it in. 
 

Never again 

[Couescrazy33]

I took in 200 pounds of boned out meat from my bull.. got back 4 boxes. Maybe 30 pounds per box.. Ground and roast..

Normally do it myself but didnt have the time this year to take on processing an elk.

Snack sticks were good. Otherwise was not very impressed.

[dsotm]

I’ve always been happy with Casey’s but will probably just buy a grinder and try it out myself next year

[NOTAGS]

The guy Ron who used to do it in Payson spoiled me. We’d average a 75% yield of what we took in with entire carcass on elk, ribs and spine  etc.  My buddies cow this year, we tried a processor we hadn t used before but they had all good reviews.  Less than 50% yield, and it was clean and not shot up. Very disappointing.  Back to Casey’s next year .    I’ll cut up my deer, but elk are too freaking big, my back blows up halfway thru.

[Couzer]

36 minutes ago, NOTAGS said:

The guy Ron who used to do it in Payson spoiled me. We’d average a 75% yield of what we took in with entire carcass on elk, ribs and spine  etc.  My buddies cow this year, we tried a processor we hadn t used before but they had all good reviews.  Less than 50% yield, and it was clean and not shot up. Very disappointing.  Back to Casey’s next year .    I’ll cut up my deer, but elk are too freaking big, my back blows up halfway thru.

That's insane, 50%. I do mostly burger so on the burger I yeild 20% more due to adding fat. 

[idgaf]

I took my daughters quarters in.  Weighed in at 202 lbs.  Got maybe 80 lbs back.   We normally do it ourselves but we were all tired.   Go back to doing it ourselves on the next one. 

[muledeerarea33?]

2 hours ago, Couzer said:

That's insane, 50%. I do mostly burger so on the burger I yeild 20% more due to adding fat. 

After burger grind, I’ll  cut it into roasts or stew meat if time allows. Then if I need more burger I just spend an hour on the weekend grinding and packaging more burger. Usually eat less game burger but with the prices of cow being so insane lately, I’ve been grinding more.

[Explorer]

Crazy what the prices are. Have heard stories of people getting low yield after taking a clean heavy elk in. Thanks for the responses. I got about 125-150 I'm thinking out of my elk. All trim and scraps are being made into healthy dogfood as well. Even gonna try some elk bone broth this year. Maybe next year even pressure cook the bits off the bones. Doing it yourself is time consuming but rewarding with the yields you get and money you save.

[idgaf]

16 minutes ago, Explorer said:

Crazy what the prices are. Have heard stories of people getting low yield after taking a clean heavy elk in. Thanks for the responses. I got about 125-150 I'm thinking out of my elk. All trim and scraps are being made into healthy dogfood as well. Even gonna try some elk bone broth this year. Maybe next year even pressure cook the bits off the bones. Doing it yourself is time consuming but rewarding with the yields you get and money you save.

I did the bone broth with the elk i shot in July.   It was a miracle worker on my torn rotator cuff.  

[NOTAGS]

I think it all boils down to how busy or backed up the processor is , and how much time they’ll spend gleaning the carcass. A quality processor  will put the time in, our last one said they were cranking 9-12 elk out a day. I guess it should have  been a warning sign. Live and learn. 

[muledeerarea33?]

41 minutes ago, idgaf said:

I did the bone broth with the elk i shot in July.   It was a miracle worker on my torn rotator cuff.  

We’ll do broth out of just about every bone in the house. It really is amazing stuff.