Butcher yeild %? What is average return?

[Crixus]

I'm sure this is an age old question you've all seen. But please let me know what you think. If you bring a deer or moose to the butcher that's quartered, no torso, spine, ribs or neck bones, so that means the only bones are the leg bones. It's also relatively clean, no crazy bullet damage or dirt/hair. It has average fat on it that will obviously get trimmed off. You ask for steaks, roasts and 20% fat ground meat. What percent back are you expecting? Any butchers out there feel free to comment too! 50%? 60% 70%?

[skaha]

I mean I think you would typically get around 30ish% of total weight in meat. At least that’s what I recall reading somewhere but I could be wrong.

edit: did a quick google search and it says an average whitetail will yield 50ish% of field dressed weight

[Crixus]

But not knowing the live weight of the animal, guys field dress can mean many different things: head on? spine and torso? hide? I'm talking you're bringing pure meat and fat to the butcher with only leg bones in it. What would you personally expect back? from say 150 lbs? Again, leg bones only, the rest is meat, fat, sinue and whatnot.

[KodiakHntr]

Depends on how long it hung for, as you will lose quite a bit to
trimming off the crust.

Elk bones will weigh 12-16 pounds from knee to top of scapula. Hinds are a couple pounds heavier.
Moose will be 16-20 respectively on the fronts.

Hanging weight on a moose you’ll be 65-ish on the fronts, 75-ish on the hinds on a smaller tripalm. 45-ish and 64-ish on a 2pt.
Expect to lose 2-10 pounds in trim loss depending on hang time, and then bones. So on a 2pt you’ll be 25lbs per front, 45 per rear, depending on how well you shot and took care of it.

I weigh everything, on every animal, every year, and keep notes.

One thing I haven’t done, is weigh quarters fresh versus after they have hung for a while, but I would expect 10% loss at an absolute minimum from evaporation and blood dripping. Likely closer to 20% weight loss, but thats just a guess. I do know however that a hind thats hung for 10 days will be noticeably lighter than when it was first hung.

[hawk-i]

There is normally 10% loss for drying, leg and blade bones don't add up to a lot weight on a deer. Guessing 15-20 lbs max?? Most of the fat is on the top of the back straps and rump and inside of loin and ribs/brisket etc so not much on the removed quarters you describe. My guess is 30% loss??

[Crixus]

Thanks for your replies so far, I'm thinking around 30% loss as well. Was hanging for 7 days around 0 degrees, but that doesn't matter as it was weighed after the 7 days. If you took in 225 lbs of moose, and as described what I dropped off, then you got 103 lbs of meat back, would you be asking questions? 46% return of meat. thats a 54% loss. The deer was 147lbs (beast!) and 76 lbs returned. Does this sound realistic? Trimming and removing leg bones shouldn't be that much....but I'm no butcher. I don't have room or time to do it myself in the garage.

[Evanguy]

Well we just had 8 pigs and 5 lambs slaughtered. Hanging weights was average 150 pound per pig and 60 per lamb

The pigs ended up at 100 pounds each cut and wrapped and the lambs came in at 35 cut and wrapped.

I know it's not deer but we just had it done 2 weeks ago so the numbers are fresh in my head.

So around 30% loss. Probably 50% loss if it all went boneless

[wideopenthrottle]

as i recall it is about 1/3 meat and 2/3 bone, skin, guts and head....

[coastcrickets]

In this scenario was the hanging weight including spine, ribs, neck bones?

[tracker]

This years muley buck dressed [no hide or head on ] hanging weight was 175 pounds. Hung in a cooler for 7 days.
Deboned all of it and resulted in
48 pounds of burger sausage mix
40 pounds of steak, roasts, and stew meat.
All fat and silver skin was removed
back and front hocks went to dog food mix
there was very little loss of meat from rifle shot, lung shot through ribs.
So hanging weight to deboned meat resulted in a 50 percent loss