butchering deer?

[BowNewby]

Anyone know a good web site for instruction on butchering up deer?

[shogan]

That would be good.

[GSP]

I don't know a site, but it is pretty easy to do. Hang by the hind legs and skin. Take a sharp knife (I use a sharp fish fillet knife) and go down by the backbone from tail to shoulder. Work knife down to rib cage and cut off the back strap. You can look at the lines in the meat and see exactly where to cut.
You can see where the shoulder flap ties into the rib cage, run your knife into there, just like you fillet a fish and slice the shoulder off the body (there is no bone joints to cut here).
After you drop the shoulders, cut the backbone into, right in front of the curve of the ham. Take a hatchet or saw and split the hams into.
Shoulders, at the top of the blade you can cut down about 4-5 inches and fillet a roast (or 2 if big deer) off the top. The rest, bone out and burger. The hams, lay on side, start at top and cut down to the bone, following the mussel lines. You should get a rump roast (top back section), 2 leg roast (one from front and rear). You can get a small roast below the knee, but I burger it. The rest of the skeleton needs to be cleaned and thrown in the burger bucket.
A good deer will give you about 10 nice roast, 20 pound burger and 4-6 backstrap roast.

[Multidigits]

http://www.cahe.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/circ508.pdf

[BowNewby]

Thanks for the help. I will give it a try this year if I'm lucky

[GSP]

Skin it and drop it by my house. I'll cut it up for the back-straps!<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

[Multidigits]

Nice try GSP--With 2 other hunters in my house, all i freeze are the backstraps and a couple rump roasts. the rest I give to neighbors. I have a German woman up the street that loves neck roasts.

[raktrakr]

i pretty much butcher my own. im too cheap to pay to get it done.only problem is i dont have a grinder. i think this year ill spring for it and get some sausage made. bownewby, did you try doing a search?

[Multidigits]

You can save your grind meat and have it ground all at one time at the proceesor. It doesn't cost much and be sure you get your own meat back if you went to the trouble of keeping it clean and fat free.

[shogan]

Take your meat and have it ground it's cheap you can call around and have a whole bunch done for like 10 bucks.

With that said. Boones in Bardstown ky can make it up into patties, 1lb burger, and whole array of sausges (pretty darn good). You can even get a little bit of everything if you don't mind the pool meat. But if you want to be certain to not share meat I think it's like 25 or 30 lbs and you can have your own batch. I like fresh stuffed or gut sausage.

Boot leg barbecue in Mt Washington ky by Gene Snyder and Bardstown road will smoke your ham for like 10 bucks going to try that this year.

[raktrakr]

ive had some summer sausage from boones and its pretty good. i do have my mixed feelings about the "pool" meat, if i do it myself its 100% guaranteed mine and no worries

[Salty]

Haven't seen anyone mention the tenderloins.....don't forget the best part. These are two small muscles, one on each side of the spine & can only be reached from inside the chest cavity. Small deer will be about 1" in diameter & 8" long & bigger deer will correspondedly be larger.

[GSP]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">You can save your grind meat and have it ground all at one time at the proceesor. It doesn't cost much and be sure you get your own meat back if you went to the trouble of keeping it clean and fat free.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> A very good tip.

Also, stop by your local processor at the end of the day. They will not mind so much then, for they are getting ready to take the equipment apart for cleaning. They must wash everything after running deer thru before they can grind beef again.
My processor always double grinds my burger and gives me styrofoam trays for $3. Heck of a deal.