Home butchering

oopswasthatyourdog?

oopswasthatyourdog?

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Sitting on my lilypad in southern Quebec
I decided to butcher my own deer this year and surprisingly it went very well. I used to pay a butcher for the service but after reading some posts on the subject I decided to give it a go. Saturday I called up my Dad and asked if he wanted to come by on Sunday and give me a hand. Dad isn't a hunter and he had never done this before but was willing to help. Sunday morning I went out to the shed to skin the deer that had been hanging for the past week. My parents showed up just as I was finishing the task. It went very well, I have steaks, roasts, cubes, ground.....and we had a great time together, even Mom helped out. We celebrated with a great meal, venison of course, and decided that the next one will take even less time to get to the freezer. In all, including cleanup, it took us 4 hours. I thought it was great fun and some good quality time with my folks. knowing we had butchered it ourselves made it that much tastier!
 
Good stuff. I'm doing more and more on my own as time goes on. I'm still leaving it to my favorite butcher to make the sausage, but the rest of it I take pride in handling myself.
 
fogducker said:
for having non hunting parents...........

:cheers: to them for taking a interest in your sport
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They are great and have always supported my passion. The may not hunt but are not anti-hunting.
On a similar note Mom came to my defence once. We were having some guests over, family and friends, when a guest started to tell me that she thought that I was being irresponsable because I take my kids to the range, have guns in the house, teaching them how to use a weapon....blahblahblah. My Mom pipes up right away with a " When my son was a teenager he owned his own guns, back then they were in an open rack on his bedroom wall. Never did I worry about his responsability with them and he made all his friends clear that if they touched his guns they would never step into the house again. We never had any trouble and I never worried. Now he has kids of his own, the guns are in a safe and if ever one of my grandchildren comes across a gun anywhere they will know how to act accordingly." :D Mom is great, she has a way of shutting people up with logic.
 
oopswasthatyourdog? said:
They are great and have always supported my passion. The may not hunt but are not anti-hunting.
On a similar note Mom came to my defence once. We were having some guests over, family and friends, when a guest started to tell me that she thought that I was being irresponsable because I take my kids to the range, have guns in the house, teaching them how to use a weapon....blahblahblah. My Mom pipes up right away with a " When my son was a teenager he owned his own guns, back then they were in an open rack on his bedroom wall. Never did I worry about his responsability with them and he made all his friends clear that if they touched his guns they would never step into the house again. We never had any trouble and I never worried. Now he has kids of his own, the guns are in a safe and if ever one of my grandchildren comes across a gun anywhere they will know how to act accordingly." :D Mom is great, she has a way of shutting people up with logic.
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atta mom:D:cheers:
 
Im 20 and did my first deer up last week, after my first day of deer hunting, and have no experience whatsoever in butchering. I never really liked the idea of just dropping off your animal to some random butcher and have it join the "community animal potluck" or whatever you'd like to call it. At first my plan was to just hang the deer for a few days then bring it to the butcher, but it was too warm so I then quartered it and put it in the fridge, and from there ended up deboning it. Things just started to make sence how it was done, so I figured hell, I use allot of ground anyways so what could go wrong and just went for it. Everything was amazingly simple, and I got some great steaks, roasts, stirfry and stew bits, and a couple freezer bags for ground. In total, it took me about 8-10hours spread over 2 afternoons to do it. Other than the minimal time factor, there shouldnt be any reason why people dont give it a go themselves, it was very easy. I also just finished doing up my first batch of venision pepperettes and jerky in my new bradley smoker, and dam are they ever good (another thing people should try themselves).
 
There have been a couple good threads here on DIY cutting. There are some very good vids on youtube, if you dig around, too.

I'd suggest "walk" or "run", as my recommendations, if the butcher you might use, does not have the time to do your carcass without getting it mixed with other folks. Pooling meat just gets you a chance at putting someone else's swamp muck on the table. I've seen some truly horrendous looking carcasses dropped of, and sure would not consider them as "food" if i had to pick some up.

I am pleased to say that the butcher I used to use, would quite happily turn away such filthy carcasses. He's a fair drive away from me now though, so I have had to start cutting my own.

It's getting hard to find a local cutter that will handle game around here. The one that used to, only handles boneless meat, so if you get it boned out (which means that almost all the work is done) they will still charge you the same rate as they used to per pound, to slice and wrap it.

Get a roll of butcher wrap paper, work through methodically, try not to grind warm meat. Newspaper sucks for counter or table covering, and you never know where it's been, eh?

Cheers
Trev
 
I have always cut my own meat, including deer, moose, and elk and would never think of taking it to a butcher. The cost is too high and if I cut my own I always know what I have. Plus I just think it is part of the hunt to cut up my own animals.
 
deadhead said:
I have always cut my own meat, including deer, moose, and elk and would never think of taking it to a butcher. The cost is too high and if I cut my own I always know what I have. Plus I just think it is part of the hunt to cut up my own animals.
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I agree, we make all our own sausage too. I might lend out my truck or my gun; but let someone else dress or butcher my animal....not happening
 
That's a pretty good guide. When I started doing my own three years ago I found a great video that described pretty much exactly the same process. The only difference was that it advocated deboning the hind quarters with the animal hanging. A little bit easier than what is shown here.

With some help from the family it takes about 3 hours start to finish for a good sized deer and the quality can't be beat.
 
With the price of tags and gas who can afford to pay a butcher? This way you get your own meat back and not the butcher's friends moose they skinned then dragged through 20km of muskeg.The old switcheroo..........I got burned this way once..........Harold
 
I have also been burned .Getting someone elses meat back instead of my own. Been doing our own butchering now for several years. The only meat I take to the butcher is for sausages and jerky.
 
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