The newbie elk hunter writes:

I'm trying to figure out my best option for shipping the meat back home, butfirst I need toknow about how much weightthis will be. I'm guessing I'll end up with about 250lbs frozen... is that a reasonable guess for an average size cow?

Thanks.

If you are talking boned meat,that would be a larger than average cow.

I would say any where from 100lbs - 180lbs

Wyo Game and Fish did a survey a few years back and the average bull came back at 160 lbs of boned meat. Cows will weigh less.

Actually elk weights vary dramatically with location,feed and age.I hunt my elk in a farming area in Albertawhere the elk eat crops and animal feedall summer.A calf in my area is no bigger than a mature whitetail buck.A yearlingcowwill have a carcass weight(head,hide,legs.internals removed)of around 200lbs or so.A large mature cow will normally have a carcass weight of 300lbs to 350lbs.A mature bull will normally have a carcass weight of about375lbs to400lbs,but my largest bull weighed 538lbs with the head,hide.legs and internals removed.I gave carcass weights instead of boned weights as we take our elk to the butcher in that state and their meat cutting prices are based on that.

If you bone it out properly, you should end up with around 50% of live weight.

Last year I shot a bull that weighted approx 700 lbs. I brought home from the butcher 210 lbs of wrapped meat.

ELK2901, I would question the butcher abouta 700 lb bull yeilding that little meat. I shot a 2 year old bull this year which I estimate to have been in the mid to upper 400 lb range, and ended up with 230 pounds. Sounds like there was some heavy duty trimming going on. Granted there was 15% beef fat added to the grind. That still would have left me around the 200 pound mark.

The processor I use has always said that you should get about 5/8 of the live weight back in meat. That's scraps for burger, sausage, jerky, etc.
So a 300 lb cow (live) should produce about 187.5 lbs. edable meat.

Below is the calculation for estimating the meatfrom adeer,but I find it quite close for elk as well.

http://www.askthemeatman.com/estimate_deer_weight.htm