Good luck to y’all.In stand now. I’ve only killed the one. Both kids are on 1 but working hard for the second today.
Good luck to y’all.In stand now. I’ve only killed the one. Both kids are on 1 but working hard for the second today.
I love me some deer burgers. May do sone this weekend. If my wife will let me.I know a couple teenagers that hang out at my local processor on the busy drop off times and do the skinning for the old guy that runs it . He pays them $13 to skin per deer $20 if they have to gut it . They make several hundred a weekend.
Anything they do that’s not a basic cut is expensive .
I do my own because I enjoy it and for the savings .
For the life of me I don’t understand why anyone cares what another man does with his money Or time , especially to the extent of calling him lazy !
Happy hunting and I hope y’all enjoy your kill regardless of how it gets on your dinner table
I agree. I think skin on would be the way if I was hanging them to age. Keep them from drying out and getting crusty.I think I’d just go skin on. Only skin them just prior to processing. There might be a good reason no to, but I don’t know it. My processor skins them but sprays them down with a vinegar solution and then bags them as air tight as possible. Maybe the vinegar makes the steaks extra good somehow? Either way, I prefer my 1” venison steaks from them to any beef I’ve ever had.
I agree. I think skin on would be the way if I was hanging them to age. Keep them from drying out and getting crusty.
That's the holy grail of sausage seasoningWe do it. I smoke some on the smoker at times also. View attachment 1273367View attachment 1273368View attachment 1273369I ran this twice it’s extra fine.
I bet. Probably stuck like glue, too.Not another one of these threads....
Skin on is the way to do it ( or the way we do it) as you say to keep from drying out. It is a bugger skinning one thought that has hung a week and hair gets everywhere.
Academy always puts a grinder and assesseries on sale after Christmas.I bought mine for 99.99 that was regular price of 299.00 because someone priced it wrongGrinder with cubing attachment will pay for itself quick.
I use a #8 Lem Big Bite and have the Lem cubing attachments for it.
Don't expect the cost to come down. the guys that are doing it now are grandfathered in, anyone new has to go through a lot of trouble just to get one started. The days of building a cooler and starting a business have ended. By the time you put in the commercial septic system, satisfy the health and Ag departments, and get all equipment up and running, you might as well forget about deer and do domestic livestock. Deer are not very lucrative at this point.
As the old timers close shop, the $75-90 processing fees will as well. Id be willing to bet that in 2025 the average cost of a basic cut will be at least $150, then add gut fees, bacon, or fat.
Power, water, disposal fees, and any material have gone up significantly. All that money everyone got during covid was nice, but we are paying for it exponentially now.
I'm still shuffling through the new regulations. There the same as the old, except deer used to be exempt.
My guy has a great setup and told me he did 5100 deer last season. Looks like he may top that this year. I think that puts him grossing around a million dollars. Not sure what he nets, but he has around 15-20 employees back there working this time of year. He’s been in business for a The average guy can't do that out of the gate.
That's a **** of a business. The average guy can't do that out of the gate.
I've been running numbers based on a $100 basic cut. I relize that there are gut and cape and sausage, etc fees. But in budgeting, I look at the lowest cost of goods sold.
2 men should be able to do 750 - 1000 deer a year. The key is to have all your bow season deer done and the cooler ready to accept gun deer as soon as season opens. Cut all day and night for about 5 weeks, and then things slow down a little.
That's $100,000 minus power, water, equipment repair or replace, and that's if you had everything when you started.
So maybe 2 people make $45k a piece. Not bad for 4 months of work. But thats 4 months you live in a deer cooler. Kid has a soccer game, too bad. You have to take in and cut deer that day.
I can build an indoor 12x20 cooler that will maintain 36-38* for about $3500-$4000 not including a rail system.
It takes 12 chest freezers to equal the power consumption of a 5x6 walk in freezer. Either way you are looking at about $7k in freezer space.
All of that gets you 60-75 deer hanging at one time.
Another $2k to finish out a room for cutting.(cold and clean)
Another $3k in equipment
$3k for electrical, if you have a buddy
Same for plumbing but under the same condition.
This is based on an interior build out of already in place structure.
Now take the new regulations and double or triple all those costs as well as the added cost of restaurant infrastructure, that depending on your land could be 20k could be $100k.
Now you have made AG and health happy, but you still have to satisfy the building code officials. That kicks in handi-cap code, parking code, tree code, site development code, energy code. Anyone in commercial construction should be able to attest to that.
Now you could have a half million dollars in a facility that will take you a decade to pay for. Its no longer a business that someone can start in their barn and grow. You have to come out of the gate a Rockefeller and charge lawyer fees to cut deer.
I read that some of the idea behind all this is to get more farm raised deer to be sold to public. Now go and look at how that impacts an area with CWD.
That's what it should be now. Free market only happens with less regulation. The bad go out of business, the good thrive. Everything in between was up to the game warden.We weren't inspected at all. Didn't have to be if all we did was deer, back then. Just had a clean processing place where we would do our own and that was good enough for our customers.