Butcher your own Meat or Pay someone? Raised & Hunted meat

[Jeeper1540]

Just wanted to add, you CAN choose more than 1 choice if more than 1 applies!!!

Our family got 2 deer tags this year. we filled one, but i still have mine to fill. the last 2 years, we have procesed our own deer, but this year since we will probably have 2 deer, we are debating on doing both ourselves or taking it to someone to process. I was wondering what you guys do, whether it be raised meat or hunted game, please vote in the poll!

 

[debilorrah]

When we hunt, we pay the butcher to process it for us. We have also learned that Ken cannot process birds. He cannot get to know a bird and then send it to rooster camp and eat it. So for us, it is either hunted food, or store bought. Big bad marine man can't eat a turkey we raised.

 

[TigerLilly]

I voted 'other.' Raised meat, pay someone else until I learn how or find the time to do it...
I equate it to oil changes in the car: I learned how to do it, but it's just as cheap to pay someone else to do it & I have that much more time to do other stuff.

 

[Jeeper1540]

well i figured i would make a separate coop someday just for meat birds. i will go in and feed them, but not talk to them, hold them, love them like i do my pet chickens. Im pretty sure i could do that.

 

[Liamm_1]

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That seems like a very good idea. I've become attached to our chickens, so it will be difficult to process them.

 

[Beekissed]

My mother and I have gutted, skinned and processed all the many, many deer the menfolk have killed over the years. Also have been doing our own chickens since the 70s.

Its no big thang....

 

[Kittymomma]

fowl, deer, and sometimes elk we do ourself. Beef and pork we pay to have done. I'd love to have a walk in cooler and the right equipment to do it all ourselves, but with what we have available it's just too much for us to handle the really large stuff. Might try doing a pig next year though. I've heard they're tricky to butcher and I have no idea how to smoke hams and bacon, but size wise it would be doable.

 

[Dogfish]

We butcher all of our meat. Fish, fowl & game. The only exception is the rare steak I buy. It really isn't that hard once you set up for it. Last year my 2 boys got two deer each, just small blacktails, and I shot a 900+ pound B&C elk, so we have been eating well. Nothing down this year yet, but when we do get something down, we'll take care of it ourselves. The exception to this is sausage. I'll smoke my own fish, but at this time it is much quicker to hand off 50-100lbs of scrap and have someone make our pepperoni and summer sausage.

One of my friends has a walkin freezer/cooler he wants to get rid of. Some day soon we'll have our own cooler.

 

[Kittymomma]

Quote:
Hmmmmm....

 

[Jared77]

The question is can you keep the meat cool enough to age it? Do you have the space and temperature do this? Here in MI for our whitetail rifle season we hang ours in the barn no issues. It never gets above 45 so aging them is walk in the park. Wrap a sheet around them, keep stuff away so the cats can't get to the hanging meat and we're good to go. My wife's family has been doing it that way for generations and its a lot less hassle.

Before I met my wife I did send some out to a butcher. I was hunting a few hours north of where I lived and didn't have the time to invest in aging at my house. I will say this, we get significantly meat now that we process our own than when I was sending to the butcher. We also work hard to get every last shred of edible meat off to turn into burger so nothing is wasted.

I've seen plans on the internet to build walk in coolers. The one I saw was 6x6 in the corner of the garage. Was simply walled it off, insulated, caulked the seams, added a window AC unit, a few hooks from the ceiling, and a new control unit and had a walk in cooler. It didn't look hard to do and was built pretty inexpensively. He said he wanted to go 8x8 but doing that meant he had to park his truck outside so he went 6x6. It would be great to age chicken, turkeys, and anything else that needed to age. One person said they even use it to hold extra food for parties, keg beer etc. Fire it up the night before cooking, put it in, and its cold.

I'm sure if you did an internet search you could fine a bunch of them with plans and suggestions for doing it better next time.