% of venison recovery
Whitetail Deer
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I tagged a nice buck on the third day of NY bow season. After gutting the animal, it weighed 135 pounds. Since I have an elk in the freezer, I gave the deer to my neighbor, who had asked for one. He had it butchered and just got it back.....subtracting the pork that was used, the buck yielded 45 pounds of meat....33.33% of the weight when the buck was gutted. Fur and head were still on the deer when it was weighed. I have seen threads inquire about the % of meat recovered in the past, so I thought that I would share the information. My nephew tagged a smaller buck over the weekend. After it was gutted, the deer weighed 112 pounds. I'll be sure to post what the buck yielded when he picks it up. I am guessing that the yield might be a little lower (30-33%) for a younger buck (at least before rut really kicks in). I am thinking about carrying a scale out in the woods in the future, so I could get a "live" weight.....then re-weigh the animal after it has been gutted. I'd be curious to get an accurate % of total body weight the guts represent. If anyone else wants to share their animal weights, and total meat recovered, feel free to post it here....
I've never weighed it. I process my own so I know I'm getting it all back.
30 to 35 percent is what my yield typically is.
I process my own as well....since my neighbor was responsible for processing the animal, I just thought that I would share the data.
Yes, that's been my experience. I don't weigh the carcass but I've weighed lots of my processed meat. I would say got the right amount of meat back.
30-35% is right where my yields are.
So do you guys think that the overall yield would be 25% of live weight?
I have been as low as 28% on a small doe and up to 40% on a 200 lb field dressed buck. 33 to 35% is about right. I have no idea on live weight percentages
Me either on live weight. Always weighed them guts out.
In 2007 I shot a buck that we weighed before dressing out....live weight was 272#. Then I dressed him and we weighed him again....weight dropped to 222#. I did not weigh the cut & wrapped meat I received back from the butcher but I do know it was the most I ever got from a single deer.
If you do your own generally you will find you have a slightly higher yield. Not that I am acussing anyone of theft but they follow some pretty conservative guidelines in trimming cutting around wounds, no so close to the bone as I like too. Espically during firearms season when you can't always be sure to get your own meat back. One of the reasons that I only send scraps in for sausage ,etc. before firearms season starts or well after it ends.
I did a deer this weekend. No meat lost from the shot. I got 29 pounds of burger and about 10 pounds of steaks. So 40 pounds off a deer that guesstimated around 150. So 30%. The deer wasn’t hung so no shrinkage or drying of meat.
Casekiska, Thanks for sharing....that's a little lower than I would have guessed.
I always figured about a 1/3 rd of the weight and a little more to burger what's added. Not every butcher will cut the scraps off like we do when we process ourselves. Its tedious and some butchers take a little for themselves. That's ok with me if they had to do that its on them. LOL
On adult IL does and small bucks I usually get about 25-35 lbs of ground meat and I would guess about 10 lbs of other straight cuts; loin, tenderloin, roasts. I never weigh them, but feel like the yield has to be north of 30%. Just shot a 215 lb. buck (weighed him) and am expecting 80ish lbs.
I always tell people new to hunting, that be prepared on the amount of meat you will be getting back from the butcher. It will seem like you got shorted.
Long time ago we shot some hogs at Shilo ranch. At that time there was a local butcher that would take a hog in at anytime and be ready for your trip back home. (made great breakfast sausage). Anyway, when we went there to get our meat, there were couple of guys from out of state picking up thiers as well. That had a great big cooler took two of them to get out of the truck. I'll never forget their faces when the guy brought out there small bags of meat. It was almost comical. They put the "small" bags in the cooler and walked away like sad puppies.
Just for reference, I once weighed a buck prior to field dressing. It's weights were 186 dressed, 225 live weight.
I agree with the 30-35% yield average for field dressed animals.
200 lb deer will yield 60-80 lbs of venison depending on shot placement .
I don't weigh all my FD deer, but most of them. I generally get 40-45% boned meat and I've butchered north of 100.
Once I figured I'd see what the maximum was that I could get. Got all those thin slabs off the rib cage, all the neck meat etc. Took forever to butcher!! Got 50%. Not worth the extra time...easier to kill another!!
Smoked venison
Smoked venison
Up the % include heart,liver, kidneys bone in rib ,bone in neck roast. Smoked rear quarter , utilized bone with marrow in soup ,
Haven’t gone Steve R “meat eater “ doing the whole head roasting thing.
Smoked shank bones cut up for soup.
I have always gone by this "rule of thumb" for deer, elk pronghorn.. 1/3 is eatable meat, 2/3 hide, guts, bones, etc.
This is interesting. My wife always wondered why I don't get as much meat from a large deer as she would think. I mainly hunt mature does and am happy to get 35-40 pounds of meat. Sometimes less than that.
I really don’t care what % it ends up. As long as I know I cleaned all the usable meat off the bone, trimmed silver skin and fat, it is what it is.
I agree with Paul... I weigh most of my deer live weight for management purposes that I keep a log on and the numbers turn out pretty consistent. I could probably see it a touch higher if I included ribs, which I don’t touch.
Doe 1:
Field-dressed weight = 156 pounds
Carcass weight = 117.2 pounds
Ideal boneless venison weight + 78.5 pounds
Realistic venison yield = 55 pounds.
Doe 2:
Field-dressed weight + 125 pounds
Carcass weight = 93.9 pounds
Ideal boneless venison weight = 62.9 pounds
Realistic venison yield = 44.0 pounds
As you can tell, the realistic yield is very conservative. Combined, both of those deer should have realistically yielded 99.04 pounds of boneless venison. The very best scenario would have brought the number in at 141 pounds.
Thankfully, the shots and field dressing efforts were nearly perfect. I had both deer processed by a friend (who happens to be a professional butcher), and although we did not separate the two deer, we did weigh all of the boneless venison after it was wrapped and frozen. Combined, these two deer netted my family 124 pounds of venison — not quite “ideal” but also quite a bit better than the realistic number.
HOW MUCH DOES IT WEIGH? Mature white-tailed deer can be heavy, but much of their weight is distributed in non-meat areas. Here are some examples of how weight is distributed in Northern deer. (live weights in parenthesis)
Hide Factor
Fawn: (100 pounds) 6.7 percent Adult doe: (140 pounds) 7.9 percent Adult buck (160 pounds) 8.7 percent Bucks: more than 160 pounds 9 percent Bone Factor
Fawn: (100 pounds) 13.8 percent Adult doe: (140 pounds) 13 percent Adult buck (160 pounds) 12.4 percent Bucks: more than 160 pounds 11.7 percent Blood Factor
Fawn: (100 pounds) 6 percent Adult doe: (140 pounds) 5 percent Adult buck (160 pounds) 5 percent Bucks: more than 160 pounds 5 percent Using this guide as an example, a 180-pound buck would have 16.2 pounds of hide, 21.06 pounds of bones and 9 pounds of blood. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to estimate the live weight of a deer if it has been field-dressed because the weight of a deer’s innards varies depending on its health and diet.
— Pennsylvania State University, Department of Animal Science and the Pennsylvania Game Commission, 1968
Carcass weight = Field-dressed weight divided by 1.331 Ideal boneless venison weight = Carcass weight multiplied by .67 Realistic venison yield = Ideal boneless weight multiplied by .70 Let’s say a hunter kills a mature buck, and it weighs 165 pounds field-dressed. Using the above equation, we estimate its carcass will weigh 124 pounds, and it will ideally yield 83.08 pounds of boneless meat. The deer’s realistic meat yield is about 58.15 pounds.
I don't usually check the live weight on mine. Dressed weights and finished weights are as follows for some of my deer from last year. These are northern Ohio deer for the most part. # 2 was a button and the last one was a shed buck that was missing the lower part of a front leg and had no fat on it whatsoever. All others are does. I trim all of the fat off that I can and also remove as much silver skin as possible. Some of the larger ones have a lot of fat that gets removed so the finished weight is lower than what you would think.
#1-62lbs. dressed...9lbs steaks and chops, 18lbs. ground...27lbs total #2-70lbs. dressed...11.5lbs. steaks and chops...19.5lbs. ground...31lbs. total #3-66lbs dressed...11.5lbs.steaks and chops...14lbs. ground...25.5lbs. total #4-100lbs. dressed...12.5lbs. steaks and chops...30.5lbs. ground...43lbs. total #5-128lbs. dressed...11.5lbs. steaks and chops...39.5 ground...51lbs. total #6-120lbs. dressed...12lbs steaks and chops...42lbs ground...54lbs. total
There's hardly any meat on a fawn. That's why I shoot so dang many of them... ;)