Okay, you’ve had a good hunting season. You bagged that buck or doe — or maybe a few if you invested in bonus tags — and your season is over. Now what?
Although I have no hard statistics, very few hunters have the time, tools, space or expertise to butcher their own deer. Like most of us, you likely took your deer to a professional processor, perhaps someone you’ve known for years or a new shop a few towns over.
The question now is how much venison you can expect to get off that deer, and if you have a curious, like-to-know brain like I do, whether you really save money by hunting and killing a deer.
To put the money question in perspective early, a processed deer often works out to roughly $3 per pound of meat — far less than grocery store beef.
For most hunters, whether it saves money is of little consequence. Hunting is what we love to do because it’s in our blood, and any money saved or lost is secondary. Still, it’s interesting to consider.
To get a general idea, I turned to the National Deer Association, a nonprofit dedicated to deer conservation and hunting education. The NDA was formed in 2020 through a merger of the Quality Deer Management Association and the National Deer Alliance, combining nearly 40 years of experience in deer conservation, management and education.
The group referenced a study from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources that examined 115 field-dressed whitetails weighing a total of 12,370 pounds. After processing, the deer yielded 6,001.8 pounds of venison, or roughly 48.5 percent of the field-dressed weight. The average deer weighed 107.56 pounds field-dressed and produced 52.19 pounds of venison. In practical terms, a 100-pound field-dressed deer should yield about 48 pounds of boneless meat.
Of course, few things go perfectly in the deer woods. Shot placement and proper game care before processing can dramatically affect the final yield. A shoulder or gut shot may damage tissue and bone, and improper handling can reduce usable meat.
The time and effort taken during actual processing also play a big role in whether hunters truly get their money’s worth. I’ve used processors in the past and sometimes wondered if I got all the venison off my deer.
During peak season, processors get busy, and it’s fair to question how often speed and efficiency are prioritized over maximizing yield — how much shank, lower leg and cuts from the neck, ribs and flank never make it home.
While most processors do an honorable and fair job, there’s little doubt hunters who painstakingly process their own deer get a higher yield.
Cost is another consideration. Grocery store beef prices these days are eye-opening. I recently checked the cost of steak and ground beef at three major grocery chains. Steak prices gave me sticker shock, and even ground beef isn’t far behind. Other than tenderloin and backstrap chops, we don’t eat many steaks in our family because we go through so much ground meat.
Ground beef ranges from $4.80 per pound for 80 percent lean, $5.49 for 85 percent and around $7 for 90 percent or better.
My small buck this year dressed at 103 pounds. As usual, I did a careful job field-dressing and had a clean extraction. Based on the amount of venison I received, I’ll assume the processor was thorough and that I got the maximum yield of about 50 percent. That works out to just over 51 pounds of boneless venison. With a $155 processing fee, the cost comes to roughly $3 per pound. Even at a slightly lower yield, it’s still just over $3, which is a pretty good savings.
Venison is naturally lean — about 2 to 3 percent fat. Some hunters, like my brother, add beef fat during processing to improve texture and juiciness, usually between 10 and 20 percent, but we prefer straight venison. Most processors charge extra for adding beef fat, which increases the final cost per pound. Even without it, the savings remain significant.
Comparing the cost of 51 pounds of 90 percent lean ground beef at $7 per pound — or $357 — to the cost of processed venison, hunting clearly saves money. Doing your own processing saves even more.
No matter how you slice it, killing a deer and having it commercially processed saves money, even when considering the many variables and other factors that can affect yield. Caring for the meat yourself can save even more, and those savings are likely to grow as grocery store beef prices continue to rise.
Since prices rarely, if ever, return to previous levels once they go up, those savings are here to stay, even if processing costs increase.
But for most hunters, the financial side is secondary. Few of us put a price on the cost of heading into the deer woods each fall. We hunt because it’s what we do, what we love and because it’s in our blood. Killing a deer is a bonus, and the cost of getting it into the freezer is just a small part of the equation.
