First, let me make the statement that I mean no disrespect with the following inquiries. I can appreciate a man, woman, or family's living with meat/game processing and I am just curious to what others think. Please do not respond to this post if you are going to be super defensive or attack my questions. I am simply curious as I have never had the pleasure or experience.
I personally process my own animals. When a friend, family member or I harvest an animal, any animal, we always process it ourselves. This includes gutting, skinning, quartering, trimming, deboning, steaking, grinding and stuffing. We create various delicacies such as dehydrated jerkies, game sticks (stripped, seasoned and baked snack sticks), bratwurst, salami, bologna, summer sausage, breakfast sausage, hot sausage (links and patties), hamburger, round steaks, backstrap, sirloin steaks etc. I do not find it hard to accomplish, as information is available online or through family recipes (in my case) and anyone with enough skill/knowledge of hunting should possess enough knife/cooking skill to complete many processing tasks. This is the main reason for my curiosity.
I always hear about people sending their animals to processors. I am always curious as to why people do this. Maybe you hunt public land and do not have a place to process a whole animal. OK. Understandable. You simply gut the animal and deliver the goods to the processor and wait for a pickup date. No head-shaking or disrespect. This question is mainly posed to the other hunters that have the facilities to process their own game. Why not do it yourself and achieve the ultimate satisfaction (in my eyes), of harvesting, processing, cooking and consuming your trophy.
Yes, time. Time will always be am excuse but I hunt/travel/work as much as the next person (if not more) and I find time. (Mainly during the off season, as I freeze most of my animals quartered) The question I am asking is why do most (that I see on the forums) use processors? This seems like a large piece of the satisfaction puzzle to just hand off to the nearest butcher.
Please share your experiences, trials and tribulations. I am simply mystified.
I could do it myself but then I would have to buy all the supplies, spices, equipment to do it. So instead of buying a grinder, sausage maker, and everything else I send them off. I admire you for doing it all, that is the way it used to be. Now with a small doe or hog I will just quarter it or put it on a BBQ spit and let her go. I do make my own jerky and snack stiks, I do have a dehydrator or put it on my smoker.
I could do it myself but then I would have to buy all the supplies, spices, equipment to do it. So instead of buying a grinder, sausage maker, and everything else I send them off. I admire you for doing it all, that is the way it used to be. Now with a small doe or hog I will just quarter it or put it on a BBQ spit and let her go. I do make my own jerky and snack stiks, I do have a dehydrator or put it on my smoker.
One or two processor trips could buy you the supplies. I have a grinder that attaches to my wifes kitchen aid mixer. Bass pro or other local vendors sell the sausage casings. Spices are cheap and most you probally already have on hand. I do not mean any disrespect but it is worth you trying this on your own. I have a "grindfest" where friend and family come over to help and we knock most of it out in a weekend. What is the goin rate for a deer or hog to be processed?
I hunt mostly out of town, so processing a deer or hog away from home is quite difficult. I do skin, gut, and quarter the animals I harvest (and those that my family harvests), but I usually end up taking the bulk of it (hams, shoulders, and neck) to the processor for grinding and making into cube steaks. I keep the loins and backstrap in large pieces for freezing. Sure, I have processed many of my own deer and hogs, but if I get back from a trip late at night after a 6 hour drive, the last thing I'd want to do is to deal with processing an animal. And, with work, the earliest I could get to it would be the next night. I lost almost a 1/2 a 250# buck from one trip to PA, because I couldn't get to it to finish processing as soon as I got home, and they only keep on ice for so long packed in plastic bags. After that, I just decided that if I wasn't going to have time as soon as I got home, then the whole thing would go to the processor in the cooler for final processing. Do I lose meat? Sure. There's no doubt. I'm far more careful with waste than a processor would be. But it's better than losing 1/2 or more of the game.
that you are able to do all that is a testament to your skill,willingness to put in the time and effort and # of animals done to get that skill from sheer experience, I can do fair to midlin on a basic job but have never tackled sausage, jerky, meat sticks,peperoni or any thing real complicated. aside from the convenience factor a good butcher just plain does a better job at it than me as that is his profession and has done thousands to my 20 or so. hogs I find a lot easier than deer. peeling the hide off a frozen or very chilled deer that has been hung for over a week is no easy task and well worth the 50-75 $ imo. not an issue down here. most if not all the butchers I knew up north had hands like stone masons, big and strong.
