Growing up, my family has always taken our deer/pigs to local processors during hunting season. I'd really like to start learning about the butchering process, aging, equipment, etc., as I think it would be a fun and practical experience to share with my dad and BIL. This isn't as much of 'hoping to save money' as a driving factor, but more so to learn a new skill and become more self reliant.

What's the best way to learn the basics of butchering and processing specific to wild game? Has anyone had any experience with formal, public classes and workshops?

TIA

ETA: B/CS , Houston, or Lufkin areas

http://modern-hunters.com/process-wild-game/

That site is decent for giving you the basics, maybe even a bit more. Read the article and watch all the videos and then decide based on your experience if you feel comfortable going on this alone, or looking for classes like you asked about. I'm just not familiar with any. Class or not, imo, your not gonna really learn until you break out the knife and start cutting. Best of luck to you and there are tons more videos on the net showing various techniques.

Seems like I read a thread about A&M offering a sausage making class and they do the beef class every year which wouldn't be exactly the same as a deer, but pretty close.

Ive never cut up a side of beef. But there are HUGE differences (size being one). I think the other main one being that most of the cutting on deer is going to be seperating the shoulder and hams into muscular groups for easy grinding, stew meat cubing, etc.

I wouldn't mind sharing what I know, but it's a hands on thing only. And a deer carcass need be present.

YouTube!

It's pretty hard to mess up processing a deer and there are a ton of videos detailing a couple dozen ways to get the job done.

As with most things, if you put in the time speed/proficiency will come...

Youtube scottreaproject. Real butcher passing on his skills through videos. Your welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheScottReaproject

OP - pick up a copy of John Mettler's "Basic slaughter and processing of livestock and game". Title may not be exact - paraphrasing perhaps, but the book has been around for years and is handy when you are in a remote location without Wi-Fi and YouTube access. Mettler is a veterinarian and as a fellow DVM he does a solid job of teaching correct anatomy and hygiene at the lay-person level with simple and easy to follow diagrams.

The Meateater on Netflix has a really good episode on just this. Starts with a gutted deer and ends with wrapping some things for the freezer. He doesn't cover some basics like grinding the meat in the grind pile but it's pretty informative.

RCR06 said:

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Seems like I read a thread about A&M offering a sausage making class and they do the beef class every year which wouldn't be exactly the same as a deer, but pretty close.

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It's run by the meat science professors. When I was at A&M, I had to take meat science for my degree (ANSC) and they talked about it. I looked into going because I thought my dad might enjoy going through it. If I remember correctly, it was like $500 for a 2 day class.

I promptly said *** that and went about my day.

aggieland09 said:

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Youtube scottreaproject. Real butcher passing on his skills through videos. Your welcome.

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I love this guy. I do not process at all and have spent hours watching his stuff anyways.

I beleive this is what you're looking for.
https://meat.tamu.edu/extension/beef-706/

Just want to ease any intimidation you might have. Our family has processed hundreds of animals on our farm...but we did have a first and know how you might feel. It is super easy, our daughters 10 and 12 always butcher their animals and have been doing it for years...they insist and even remove the edible organs. Our youngest will not kill the poultry or even watch but once it's dead she is fine.

You will get better and faster with experience. Some advice: skin the animal while it is still warm, it comes off much easier. Know where the glands are and make sure they get cut out. With wild birds, don't throw the legs and thighs out, they make fantastic soup/stews. Buy an upright freezer. Make sausage, it's easy and fun...turkey apple mmmmmmmm.

We grew up with what we called the "meat house". Essentially it was a barn with a walk in cooler on one end and a huge farmhouse style table for cutting up the meat. We had the meat saws, retrofitted grinder with an electric motor instead of the hand crank.

We always killed one of our show pigs the first "cool snap" every year. I will say that it is a hell of a lot of work, but some of my best memories include those crisp mornings, my papaw and his brothers my dad and brother cutting up meat.

I take for granted having my papaw, uncle Ray and uncle Duke there because they knew EVERYTHING from butchering to planting an amazing garden. There are times I'm planting potatoes now with my boys I wonder if I was as hard headed as my 2 sons are.

Bottom line is it isn't hard once you get started. I still process all of my own deer, and one of these days I'll butcher more pigs/steers on my own place.

Stupid double post

I hear ya about the beef. I guess my thinking was a lot of the same ideas and techniques will apply. Of course there are big differences between the two. It was the only in person course I'd ever heard of that would be close to what he was asking about. Probably, as most have said, online videos will probably be the best thing.

I totally agree, and if I sounded combative I wasn't trying to be.

I just meant that beef will have a lot more "side meat" that you'll be able to cut off and use that a deer won't have.

Deer you'll get the backstraps, tenderloins, the hams, and shoulders. You can cut neck meat off the neck if you want and cut the ribs off, but the ribs are hard to do anything with besides BBQ or smoke whole (IMO).


I'd gladly host a butchering party like I did the gun build party if someone has a deer to donate.

OnlyForNow said:

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Ive never cut up a side of beef. But there are HUGE differences (size being one). I think the other main one being that most of the cutting on deer is going to be seperating the shoulder and hams into muscular groups for easy grinding, stew meat cubing, etc.

I wouldn't mind sharing what I know, but it's a hands on thing only. And a deer carcass need be present.

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Same here.

Not an expert, won't have butcher shop quality cuts to display at a meat counter after, but have butchered every deer I've ever shot, several pigs and various other small game. Process is really not hard, you just have to get over the intimidation factor. I had a buddy of mine help me on the first couple and I've been doing it ever since.

Deer are easy. I may take an elk or something larger to a processor next time. Those things are big.

I imagine quartering an elk is very similar to a deer and if you had it strung up wouldn't take that much longer.


For anyone who has never even quartered an animal. You really just start pulling on limbs and cutting where it seems natural to cut.

Deer shoulders should come off without ever cutting through meat. All you need to cut is fascia (connective tissue that is clearish/slightly bubbly). Tenderloins are the next easiest/easiest, and located below the diaphragm in the abdominal/pelvic cavity. They can sometimes be manually removed with just hands, or very few cuts of fascia only (again no meat should be cut when removing them).

Backstraps are more of an artwork thing. Gotta get between the vertebral spines or spineous processes (the part of the vertebrae that would be pointed towards the sky if the deer were walking normally) and vertebrae "wing" or transverse process and part of the upper rib. I've never seen anyone take out a backstrap without cutting some meat but I imagine it could be done.

Hams are a different animal, but you can either cut through the pelvis (yuck - deer bone marrow makes the meat taste like ass), or you can bone it out from the pelvis. I always start with the deer gut hole facing me and work around to the back, just get a good knife and follow the pelvis bone around. The major muscle group(s) that form the top of the ham and backside are easy to see and identify in most Texas deer due to lack of thick fat layers so you just cut along the outer most seam (closest to the backbone) and viola!

That's quartering in a nutshell.

For my birthday a couple years ago my wife signed us up for an old-world hog butchery class at Revival Market (Houston Heights). It was like 4 hours, byob, and they served muffalettas. Discussed the differences in hog varieties over a pair of half carcasses, discussed usda permits, took one of them all the way apart while describing what parts get turned into what kind of charcuterie or other cuts, it was awesome and very comprehensive. More geared toward the artisanal stuff than a hunter wanting to take apart a critter, but as previous posts have mentioned that's really just splitting along the bellies and trying to make your meat look like something you'd buy at the store. Class was awesome, highly recommend.

https://www.agricolehospitality.com/revival-market/

looks like they've changed up their website so you can't search events anymore, might be worth a call to see if they have a class in the works, or just sign up for their newsletters and keep an eye out

Quartering? Sure, nearly the exact same. Processing? Same...but different.

And we do string them up - damn things are just big. You don't get an appreciation for the difference in skinning, quartering and processing a 100 lb deer versus a 700 lb elk until you do one.

But deer....they are relatively easy and don't take a whole lot of time, especially if you don't require super pretty post card quality cuts. Having a good electric grinder makes a monster difference when you get to the grinding stage of it as well.

I will say completely boning out an elk, with headlamps, in a snow storm is a blast. All done on the ground.

I was pleasantly suprised how easily the hindquarters come off at the joint on elk.

aggieland09 said:

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https://www.youtube.com/user/TheScottReaproject

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i dont see anything on there about processing a deer

ahhhh, work filters are culling those results. i can see them on here but they wont play. only his cooking videos show up on mine

After reading this post, I binge-watched most of Scott Rea Project's videos on venison and they are fantastic videos. Very informative.

Like many Texas hunters, most of what I've processed is ground and leave backstrap's whole.
SRP shows how to get some really cool steaks and other cuts.

Highly recommend watching these videos.

I watched one yesterday and had the same though. I also had the thought that in order to make meals like that I need to shoot more deer. I only got 1 buck this year, he is going to be all GM, if I didnt do that I may have to use real ground meat like the rest of america and who wants that!

Next year I really do hope to try some of his tricks, like cutting the hams into steaks.


This weekend however I am going to use the tenderloins/sweet meat and pan sear them like steaks