What Do You Pay For Processing A Deer

[RANisbet]

I am in Huntsville, Alabama and I end up paying about $55 (skinned) as a base price. $75 if not skinned.
If I want suasage he adds $2 per Lb.
If I want to mix beef or pork fat, he adds $1 per Lb. for that.

In Texas we were charged $170 last year as a base price (In Plano, North of Dallas).
In Houston, Texas we were charged $90 last year as a base price.
Also in Houston, one of the places will smoke it for 60 cents a Lb.
Bob Nisbet

[Jeff Quinn]

You can save a lot of money if you do it yourself. I like to vacuum-seal mine. It keeps better.
You have seen cuts of meat before, and can do it all yourself. Just cut the meat into serving-size pieces. Get a small hand-operated grinder if you want ground meat. It doesn't take a lot of equipment, and you can control the cleanliness and portion sizes yourself.

[86er]

$45 cut only
$60 cut and wrapped in butcher paper
$80 de-boned, cut and wrapped in butcher paper
Link sausage add $ .90 per pound
Ground sausage or hamburger bulk add $.70 per pound
specialty sausage, salami, etc has additional pricing.

This is in Central Texas and coincidentally is the same pricing I experiened in Long Island, NY.

[wm]

I pay $55.00 here in mid Michigan. But since I generally end up donating the meat to the Red Cross for their wild game fund raising dinner I don't pay anything.

Wm

[Grizz]

DIY

you make money if you do it yourself and you learn something and it makes you a real hunter (or provider) rather than just a shooter...

we usually boned out all our meat. necks and rumps make roasts. we steaked the loins and backstraps, the rest was packaged as it came off and frozen, or ground to hamburger while the other pieces were being wrapped.

it takes around two minutes to skin a deer. makes good wages I suppose, for the guy doing it.

Grizz

[Modoc ED]

If you bring it in skinned, it's $50.00 with nothing fancy -- add $25.00 to skin it. If you want to add pork, you pay the price per pound for the pork. Pretty reasonable. If you want to hang it in his locker to age for six to eight days, he charges $5.00 a day for locker space.

When possible, I try to process my own but as I've gotten older it is more convenient to have it done and it depends on the weather too. If it's warm, I turn it over to the butcher as he has a chill locker to age it in but if the weather is consistently cool/cold every day, I'll hang it in my pole barn to age for a few days before processing.

[Kansas Ed]

I can hang, bone, cut, wash, wrap, and grind a deer and have the kitchen cleaned up in 4 hours by myself, as long as some one is feeding me meat tubs while I bone. If you add 80-100 bucks for the processing you might as well have gone to the store and bought beef. JMO.

Besides, most meat processing plants I've seen don't give you your meat back in burger...they just mix it with every one elses...so you get all the smelly nasty stuff mixed in that has been gut shot, wasn't gutted properly, rank buck meat...etc. I think that is one reason so many people don't like venison, because they first tried stuff that wasn't taken care of properly.

Ed

[RIHMFIRE]

I do it all...

[2ndovc]

I'm hoping to be able to do my own again.
My former father in law used to do two deer in an afternoon.

Hardly enough time to even go hunting now.


I have a guy that does it out of a little barn
behind his house for $60.00

jb

[Modoc ED]

Besides, most meat processing plants I've seen don't give you your meat back in burger...they just mix it with every one elses...so you get all the smelly nasty stuff mixed in that has been gut shot, wasn't gutted properly, rank buck meat...etc. I think that is one reason so many people don't like venison, because they first tried stuff that wasn't taken care of properly.

Ed

That's a good point about a meat processing "plant" where they process many deer at one time. Fortunately, the guy that processes deer in our town does it one at a time as he's a one-man operation and he processes on his schedule -- not yours.

As for the price to process, it's miniscule as far as I'm concerned. I hunt no further than fifty miles from my home when I hunt and therefore, have no expenses so-to-speak.

[TedH]

I do my own, but I think the lockers were getting about $90 last year to skin, cut and wrap.

[Molasses]

Place I like to go straight to after getting 'em registered charged $75 apiece last year for loin cuts, boneless steaks and everything remaining turned into deerburger.

[Pete44ru]

I've also been DIY'ing since 1967, with my son following suit when he started hunting 10 years after that.

Although vacuum-packing is nicer, it's not strictly necessary - nor is an advanced degree in animal butchering.

Skin it, take apart the joints, and de-bone the meat for processing on a clean table (not plywood).

Over the years, our family has come to prefer that all venison excepting the tenderloins and backstraps get ground up.
The grinding process pretty much takes away the occasionally tough and/or stringy steak/roast meats one generally runs across from various deer.
The burger also works well for venison meatballs; and we put up at least half as both sweet and hot sausage.

.

[L_Kilkenny]

Got tired of paying for it years ago, we do or own. 4/5 of us will get 6-8 deer done in a day. I skin and quarter with a helper. Rich cuts up the steaks and roast, I butterfly the back straps and loins, every one else does the little stuff. I don't like deer burger so all my small pieces get used for stew meat. Everyone else grinds theirs.

LK

BTW, seems to me that it was about $90 for BASIC skin and butcher from the locker last time.

[gcs]

My old man had a butcher friend do my first deer years ago, I think it was 30 bucks at the time, I watched him do it and decided right then that I'd do my own, Heck, it's so easy even a caveman can do it!
I do 3-6 a year now, and I can take them apart and get them vacuum sealed quick, fast, and in a hurry. I wouldn't pay someone to process, especially at some of those prices.

[Bullard4075]

32 bucks cut and wrapped.

Then I donate it (we don't eat Deer) to the Food Bank.

32 bucks off the taxes as charity, everybody wins.

[rafter-7]

I do it myself and it costs about $6.00 a deer spices,paper,tape and the beef fat I get for free from the butcher.

^
7

[buckeyeshooter]

In Ohio $110.00 cut and vacum sealed. In Kentucky, $65.00 cut and wrapped.

[O.S.O.K.]

I do my own as well. I don't trust the meat lockers to give me my meat back and also I'm just cheap. I'd rather take the hour or so to do it myself.

[LeverBob]

I don't. The last time I had a processor do my deer, he mixed it with several others & produced the most rancid meat I ever tasted. Almost ruined the whole carcass.

I butcher & cut my own, that way I know the meat will be tender & not gamey. Make my own sausage too. Doesn't give you gas either.

LB

[Shasta]

Local meat locker charges $3 day hang only with $20 minimum, $.75 lb. standard cut plus $.25 lb. wrap, or $.95 lb. boned out plus .25 wrap, with a 70 lb. minimum.

I hang only for 1 week and bone, cut, wrap my own. Takes me 4 hrs.

SHASTA

[hondo1892]

I do all the deer my daughter, dad and I shoot every year. I ain't fast but I know where its been and how it was kept until butchering. I seen one processer throw deer in a livestock trailer piled to the ceiling. It was very warm that year also, so I'm sure that was some fine tasting deer... Not!