Butcher's Bill = Soiled shorts

I am not sure about your pricing in all honesty. Maybe it's just where we live but we generally pay 1.50 per pound of sausage, including the cutting (jerky is the most expensive for some reason, can't figure that one out as it's dead easy to make, but I guess all the trimming work takes time). For an example last year we brought 4 150# bucks (hide and head off, bone in)in together and just had the butcher pool the cuts and sausage. We took prime roasts and chops (loin, t-bone, rib steaks, etc) as cut meat and the remainder as various sausage types, with approximately 40# (wet) of jerky. Total bill was $785 which I considered to be very good considering the amount of meat we had. To me, 250 bucks for a single deer does seem a bit high, but where I go they charge you the cutting price based on the bone in animal but the sausage based on what the total sausage meat and trip weighs, so they're not dinging you twice for the extra weight of the bones. In all honesty I have done sausage and jerky myself when time permits and it's not really that much work, nor is deboning it, regardless of what anyone may say. The hard (aka expensive) part is getting the good equipment to make the job go smoothly. Some ingredients can be expensive but come on, pork is dirt cheap, and so generally is the rest of it. You're paying for labour, so I would suggest finding a teacher and learning to do it yourself.
 
How far North? The local guys here in middle earth Manitoba get all pissy when people bring in their jumpers all shot to hell with Hair, Dirt, Leaves and all kinds of crap stuck all over it makes a real mess of their equipment and work areas. Price will vary depending on the condition of the animal when it is dumped out of the back of the pick-up:D
Pete.....
 
Well after reading this post you all scared me. Then the butcher called as if on que, $233.36 for a 130LB deer...but I did get sausage,pepperoni,whole backstraps,steaks,and roasts.My hunting partner is super anal and had me clean this deer like it was going to be eaten right away. Hung from a tree with rope over a tarp, wiped down with numerous paper towels,had me pick every hair I could see off and finally put in the truck on a fresh new tarp. So the condition of the animal was excellent. I am surprised at the price but what can you do?
 
Be fair, the butcher is trying to make up some of the money he's not going to make selling you stockyard meat for the rest of the year. :D

Buy a grinder and make your own? Get together with some hunting buddies and split costs?
 
My parents owned a butcher shop for over 25 years. Just before they sold, I helped out with butchering and whatnot. Bills for an average deer were typically between $150-$275 + taxes, depending on size of deer, type of sausage/jerky/product made, etc. Cut and wrap was a dollar a pound. We processed ALOT of deer, and this was done on top of the usual business of a sausage shop. Everything costs, from the spices to the storage/refrigeration, to the extra overtime wages paid to employees (my dad was working 14-16 hour days, 7 days a week, during hunting season). Sure, cheaper prices could be had elsewhere, but you usually get what you pay for (hence the huge number of returning customers my dad had every year, despite the slightly higher prices).
 
I took the sausage making course at CTR in Edm. a couple years back. Cost around $100 or so for the one day. But you learn allot on sausage making from brats, breakfast, to farmers sausage, the different casings as well as the sanitary handling, aging of the meat, smoking, equiptment...
There are also a good web site on meat smoking and making jerky,... called "SMF Smoking Meat Forums".

Yeah $200-$300 for a deer sounds high. But if any business did anything (auto shop, electrican, plumber) for 3-4 hrs. The bill would be the same.
 
DVXDUDE said:
we paid $1100 for 2 moose to get skinned, butchered, cut and wrapped. We got quite a bit of sausage as well though, I thought it was pretty pricey.....
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Last fall we paid $1200 to have 5 moose done...All de-boned and vac-packed
 
im going to pick up 51lbs or so of pepperettes i took in last week. the total is $3.50/lb including the pork i took in. at first i was surprised by the $125 total, but then i thought about it some more. we split on it so im paying $60 for 25lbs of pepperettes.

goto a place that sells deer pepperettes and you will likely pay nearly 3 times more for "mystery meat"....
 
gorky said:
My parents owned a butcher shop for over 25 years. Just before they sold, I helped out with butchering and whatnot. Bills for an average deer were typically between $150-$275 + taxes, depending on size of deer, type of sausage/jerky/product made, etc. Cut and wrap was a dollar a pound. We processed ALOT of deer, and this was done on top of the usual business of a sausage shop. Everything costs, from the spices to the storage/refrigeration, to the extra overtime wages paid to employees (my dad was working 14-16 hour days, 7 days a week, during hunting season). Sure, cheaper prices could be had elsewhere, but you usually get what you pay for (hence the huge number of returning customers my dad had every year, despite the slightly higher prices).
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$1/lb cut and wrap off the scale? That is highway robbery! I haven't paid more than $0.55/lb! I have actually never heard anything over $0.60/lb advertised! I am thinking you must have charged $1/lb in the package; that would be alright. I sure miss the Hungarian sausage from Mountain down there.
 
The place I use when I pay for cutting and wrapping is 90 cents a pound on the hook for cut and wrap.

Sausage is a further $2.50 a pound, plus whatever additional meat goes into it (beef or pork, trim or lean meat, etc.) I had 20 pounds of moose made into cooking sausage, came to right around $80, for IIRC, 25 packages of wrapped sausages.

Pepperoni sticks, $2.75 plus added meat.

Jerky, not sure, but IIRC it was around $3or $4 a pound, wet, labor and smoking being the price.

He won't allow meat thats covered in filth even get hung in his cooler, I get the meat that I took in (no "pooling" of ground meat), and he runs a clean shop.

$250 to turn an entire deer into sausage. Sounds like a bargain.

Too much time in the oil patch weldboss? :D I always know beforehand, how much it's gonna cost me. Can you get three or four hours work out of a skilled tradesman in the patch, for that kind of money?

Enjoy it. It's cheap, good, eats. And you don't have to own several hundred (or thousands) of dollars worth of equipment to have the stuff.

Cheers
Trev
 
rem338win said:
$1/lb cut and wrap off the scale? That is highway robbery! I haven't paid more than $0.55/lb! I have actually never heard anything over $0.60/lb advertised! I am thinking you must have charged $1/lb in the package; that would be alright. I sure miss the Hungarian sausage from Mountain down there.
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That was actually the shop my parents used to own :p Sold it 4-5 years ago. I might be wrong but I am quite sure it was $1/lb, cut and wrap (regardless of cuts wanted), vacuum packaging extra. If I had to guess 1/5 to 1/4 of all deer that went through the shop were cut and wrap only.
 
Just had some sausage made in Grande Prairie, $1.99 /lb (pork fat included). Its a little pricy but it is good stuff. Definately don't mind paying for quality meat that you can actually eat and doesn't end up in the spring bear bait. I think they were charging $0.78/lb to cut and wrap deer. The guy we take our moose to is $0.48 /lb to hang the moose whole, cut, wrap grind for hamburger, make minute steaks, and freeze. The best part is that he requires you help cut up your game - works good for us because you know exactly what you get.
 
the fellow i plan on taking my deer to charges $55 for the first 110 pounds. after that, it's 50 cents a pound. i'm assuming that's just cut and wrapped and that jerky and sausage are extra.
 
One time I took 5 deer in for me and my brother and it cost over $1000 for pepperoni and smokies. Good thing we split it 50/50
 
I've never taken mine to a Butcher but 250$ seems about right to me.
It's all relative to your level of wages I suppose. 20$ an hour is what I'd want to do it, if that was my business; why would I expect to pay less? If you are OK with an amateur doing it then pay the cheapest moron you can find. If you want it done properly then expect to pay a decent wage. An entire animal that tastes like it was de-boned with a weed trimmer and processed in a wood shredder would be an insult.
Good equiptment and skilled work is worth decent money.
Pay real money for real work, IMO
No offence intended.
Did the sausage taste good? I got sketchy pork from a small town butcher shop( I didn't notice til afterwards) and ruined about 60lbs of my own grind couple years back. It P.O.'d me supremely til next hunting season. I'd have paid to have that batch done properly,LOL
 
Mine was 40$ cut and wrapped (106 pound doe), no sausage. I was going to get sausage but my butcher told me that a "skein" of pig intenstine for making sausage (I'm not sure how much a "skein" is, or even if that's how you spell it, but he figures it's one pig-worth of sausage casing) has jumped WAY up in price this year. Last year he paid 16$ a skein. This year it is near triple at nearly 50$ a skein. No idea why, but his may account for the high price of your butcher job (because so much sausage). I skipped the sausage and took more ground chuck. Making great burgers and plan to try some jerky.
-DW
 
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