A friend of mine killed a giant 12 point last year. I was there checking in a much smaller buck when he was arranging to get it mounted and butchered. They lost all the meat from this 192 lbs buck. He took it better than I would have.

A butcher tried to pull that on me once. I walked around the back of his shop and found my rack very quickly. I hate to say this but that rack was deliberately stolen from you. They don't lose racks, especially good ones. I would threaten to press charges and then watch that crook "find" it quickly.

I feel bad for you because you care about the horns. But in general I think it is pretty sad that you can sell a rack on ebay. What the hell is someone going to do with a rack that they didn't even shoot? Makes no freakin sense.

I would be pissed and at the very least he better butcher that deer and two more just like it for free.

Tom

My processor has a rule: No Guts, No Skin, No Head, No hoofs.

Thisprevents the problem.

I agree I would refuse to pay! If they find the antlers, horns, whatever then you could pay. But I would not take them anything else to process and I would spread the word about the shady practices

I do all the cleaning and processing of my own meat so I would never run into this problem, but IF I had to take the meat to get processed I definetily would cut the antlers or head off first. If you wish to mount the deer then cape it out and take only the carcass to the proccessor. That guy STOLE not lost your rack. Bummer[>:]

When it comes to big bucks, make sure you get the antlers before you leave. Don't trust a stranger to keep you antlers. I've forgot to pick up small racks before... but never had one lost or stolen.

Even if I had hit a tiny 6 point or fork-horn with my car, I'd WANT the rack. I just like the way whitetail horns (yeah, I know it's antlers) look...sitting on the book case, a shelf, wherever...no two sets are the same, and they all have their own character.

We call em Horns...............but I like Bone better..............

Don't know how they can loose a set of horns. We butcher about 250 deer a year and they all get droped off with horns - we either mount em or give em back.....even the dinks.........

I would question him again.........

I agree, they didn't "just loose" them. Antlers are used for lots of differant things, from chandaliers, to calls, to parts of furniture, etc. To sell them would be very easy.
Hopefully you have a pic. or two or three of them. I would demend them back or threaten to bring in law enforcement, or like what was said about not paying the processing fee, as long as you got your meat, BUT that would depend on how badly you really wanted your antlers back!