Yep, I've heard some real horror stories from guys having their meat processed by someone else. My dad taught me when I was young how to bone out a deer and I've done every single one of my deer and elk myself. Plus you get the satisfaction of knowing you completed the hunt from start to the very end!!!!! And I'm able to keep as much of the so called "no good scrap" for all of my jerky!!!!!! And man is it good!!!! Doing it yourself is the only way to go in my book!!!! When I lived in Frisco Colorado we used to have boning parties for our elk and you should have seen the piles of meat we had stacked up from a single elk....the guy took you....period!!!!! Enjoy the elk though, to me it tastes tons better than any cow I ever ate!!!!!! I love elk meat!!!!!! For 2 of my kids we had in Fairplay Colorado the ranchers wives would bring a dozen red roses to the hospital room and then serve us one of the finest elk loin dinners you ever tasted!!!! The wife wouldn't eat any elk so I ate both steaks, both times!!!!..... Boy, those were the days....Bet noone ever got one of them in the big city!!!!