Got my buck back from the butcher shop today
 

54 lbs and a few ounces of dry venison, back straps and tender lions and ground meat. Nothing added to the meat. Pretty good return of boned meat. I wish I would have weighed him before he went to the butcher.

I usually get around 30 percent but I don't mess with any damaged meat and am pretty fussy about what goes into the grinder. A pro butcher can always get more weight than an amateur like me. Hopefully I can put my butchering skills to work this weekend. Our ML season opens and my goal is a 100 pound plus doe.

How much did the butcher say the carcass weighed?

Cal, He doesn't weight deer in as a matter of course. My buck was an archery deer so there was not a lot of damage to the meat. I weighed my meat when I got home on a good scale. At 30 percent of return of meat compared to live weight I figured the buck probably weighed about 160 lbs live weight . CI I use 30 percent as well as a gauge and I always tell the butcher not to keep any bloodshot meat. I knew the buck was heavy when I pulled him up from the creek where he died with my friend to gut him and them when I loaded him onto my ATV. When you handle as many deer on the round as I have in the field, you get a pretty good ballpark idea of what they weigh. Still, next time I kill a big one I will asked the butcher to weigh it, I am sure he would because he hangs mine for 6 days in the cooler after it is skinned and split down the backbone.

Go get em, good luck.:biggrin:

Thanks and as a matter of confidence I ordered some sausage seasoning from LEM in advance. Nothing like putting some pressure on me to produce...lol

Have you tried the garlic sausage seasoning they have? Do so. It is really good

No I haven't but have used that company for quite a few years. I will try that type next time I order. I normally get hot breakfast, hot Italian, and the maple flavored. One really good sausage recipe I found is a Pennsylvania Dutch version. It has around 9 spices and has been popular among my family. You can find it by googling moyers venison sausage recipe. This order i am going to try the LEM jalapeño summer sausage. My brother made some and it was pretty good.

That's interesting about your butcher not weighing the deer. Mine weighs them when he loads them onto the hooks to go into the cooler. I don't know if that's a legal requirement here or he's just being careful. Either way, it gives me a rough idea of what my buck likely weighed when alive. I figure the hanging weight is maybe half of the live weight with head, guts, feet, etc.

no butcher in my area will weight a deer unless asked by customer, and that ONLY happens IF they have the time to do so
many butchers in say rifle season, are just too busy to do so, and its too much hassle to be placing deer on a scale
yrs ago,(late 1980's) I bought my own scale, upgraded it a few times to better models, and I used to track weights of deer I shot, mostly for useless data to have LOL
but at a few of my hunting camps, we used to have deer pools for the heaviest deer every yr, so scales got used there a bunch, but was all for fun,!

one thing I DO know, is , its amazing how many times, hunters CLAIM a deer is heavy and when on a scale, there is a BIG difference in there guess and reality!(really big differences on BEARs too over deer, far too many think all bears are HUGE when odds are its not even close to there guess)
which might be why so few own and use scales
rather be guessing and saying they got a BIG one than knowing for sure ! HAHA!