A Little Bit of Venison

[Doc]

Just 5 hours into the season:

I tried to rush a few pictures and also stay out of everybody's way so the pictures highlight more the quantity than the quality of the deer that were there. I did see some guys walking out with some caped out trophies, but I didn't get their pictures. Sorry about that ..... maybe I'll do a better job next year. The pictures were kind of a rushed after-thought. But I thought some of you might find the harvest of the venison there kind of interesting. This is a processor located between Bloomfield and Victor in Western NY.

 

By the way, note the stack of deer hides in the background from deer they had already skinned.

 

[Fletch]

Awful warm for such a stack of deer sitting out. Do they have a cooler?

[bkln]

WTF is this Doc? Deer Slaughter, the grass is soo green and people wearing short sleeve... you sure its a deer season? I mean I like meat but c'mon...

[Nomad]

Pro cut ?

[Doc]

I watched these guys work, and believe me those deer didn't stay there too long. They had a pile of guys working there and processed them like an assembly line. They were almost running. Once they got them inside the building, the temp in there was pretty darned cold. This isn't an operation like we might do at home. They can skin a deer in an unbelievably short time and onto the conveyor racks they go. It was interesting to watch people doing this stuff that really know what they are doing.

[waterweasle]

its a processors, I'm sure they have a cooler if they are doing this for money, and if they are good( which I would think they are by the amount of business there on the ground) they will work through that pile plenty fast enough to get em inside to cool down, I've seen the same type of thing the last place I had a deer done, while talking to some hunters, I watched em lay out about 14 or so deer, and had em inside within about 30 minutes, not bad really

[steve863]

If there was ever a reason why people SHOULDN'T use deer processors, your pictures would be it! I don' t care how reputable the processor is. No one would convince me that the processor can guarantee someone will be getting their own meat back after a scene like in your pictures. This processor looks like he has way more deer than he will be able to handle.

[waterweasle]

so you know how many people he has working there to handle the business? you should call him and tell him that, the place I was at the owner walked me through the whole process of how they did it, and it was pretty tight control of whose deer went where...and that they stayed with the tags that were on them, seeing as its also a legal thing cause if DEC checked his place and found deer without tags someones getting a ticket,

[YFKI1983]

No shot everyone gets their own deer back... I just consider butchering the deer as part of the hunt now.

[YFKI1983]

so you know how many people he has working there to handle the business? you should call him and tell him that, the place I was at the owner walked me through the whole process of how they did it, and it was pretty tight control of whose deer went where...and that they stayed with the tags that were on them, seeing as its also a legal thing cause if DEC checked his place and found deer without tags someones getting a ticket,

You may be right. I just had a couple of bad experience so I guess I shouldn't throw all of them in the same boat...I also had both my deer cut the opposite of how I asked as well so it wasn't just one thing

[DCHunts]

This is just like any other business on earth. There are good ones and bad ones.

[steve863]

so you know how many people he has working there to handle the business? ,

Don't care to find out. Seeing a pile of deer laying in the sun on a warm day is all I need to know. I am far from a professional butcher, yet had a deer skinned and quartered a couple hours after it was shot. I don't need to pay these so called "professionals" to do a worse job than I could do myself.

[bkln]

I guess I will stick to process my own deer as much as I can, at least I know what I'm getting... pun intended...

[azhuntress]

Somebody had posted earlier a forum titled "Where are all the deer?" Well, I guess

they are all there! I hear of people getting numerous tags and filling them all.

Why??? Why the mass slaughter? What's the point? How can a normal sized family eat

that many deer in a year??

As much as I love hunting, that picture really makes me sad

[waterweasle]

Somebody had posted earlier a forum titled "Where are all the deer?" Well, I guess

they are all there! I hear of people getting numerous tags and filling them all.

Why??? Why the mass slaughter? What's the point? How can a normal sized family eat

that many deer in a year??

As much as I love hunting, that picture really makes me sad

what do you mean mass slaughter, whats the point, how can a normal sized family eat that many deer......... go check the tags, are you thinking that they are all from the same hunter?? lol that's funny, normal size family whats your definition of that, my buddy and his wife will only eat venison as their red meat for the year, if he has a bad year, they don't eat red meat, so if its being utilized what business is it of anyones

[azhuntress]

Dude. I know that all those deer aren't from one single hunter. I'm not that friggin

stupid! I'm just talking about some of the NY hunters that whine that there's no deer

and they wonder where they are...well it's because some people take WAY more than they

need. My husband and I hunt both NY and PA so we can kill 12 deer between the two of

us. Know how many we kill???? Two! That's all we need in a year. Why kill just for

hell of it??? That's all I'm saying.

[Doc]

The tag never leaves the carcass throughout the whole process. That applies whether the carcass is whole, on the conveyor or on the butchering table. Of all the imagined problems with professional butchers, that is probably the most unlikely. And as far as laying in the sun, I watched that pile grow and then disappear, and believe me most of those deer probably laid in the woods a lot longer than they laid there. I've been using these guys for quite a few years now, and I have never gotten any bad venison. Unless the deer has already been laying in the woods and already begun to spoil, these deer didn't stay there long enough to do any harm to the meat. The trick is not to leave the things laying around for half a day before getting them to the processor.

 

I know I have heard all kinds of arguments against processors and really believe that most of the comments are simply the product of over active imaginations .... lol. These guys don't stay in business if they start handing back tainted meat or short-counts on the amounts of venison. I butchered my own deer for a whole lot of years and I know what quantities of venison I should be seeing. I have never gotten back less venison than if I had done the job myself.

[waterweasle]

who says that they were killed just for the hell of it, doc I also believe its from a lot of people who bring a deer into get cut up, and then they see the finished product and think, man my deer was huge this should be twice the meat

[sssurfertim]

A lot of those deer most likely were some guys ONLY kill for the season, not really understanding what you getting at. Cool pictures!

[the blur]

Opening weekend was HOT.  Sun was blasting in the afternoon. 58 degrees outside, in the shade.  My deer was on ice, inside and out.   I brought at least 15 bags of ice, and had a big plastic tub.   And I drove home with the deer in the car, not on the roof, for that specific reason.

 

I have heard butchers say, they don't go bad, but I can't imagine otherwise.   But I have seen 2 processors, with deer laying outside like those pictures.  I am just baffled by the whole process.   And then I would be paranoid to eat any of it, and I wouldn't even let my family eat it, if it was laying out like that.

[Doc]

Dude. I know that all those deer aren't from one single hunter. I'm not that friggin

stupid! I'm just talking about some of the NY hunters that whine that there's no deer

and they wonder where they are...well it's because some people take WAY more than they

need. My husband and I hunt both NY and PA so we can kill 12 deer between the two of

us. Know how many we kill???? Two! That's all we need in a year. Why kill just for

hell of it??? That's all I'm saying.

Well, I have no way of knowing whether there were any "game-hogs" adding to that pile, but I will say that there was a steady stream of vehicles coming and going, and while I was there, I didn't see anyone come in with a truck-load of deer. So what I am saying is that the pile in those pictures only shows that deer hunting is a very popular activity and that there are a significant amount of people that are successful at doing exactly what they intended to do. It is just a graphic representation of the realities of hunting. If we believe in hunting, then we should have no problem with a display that those deer are actually being used.

[steve863]

Another thing that these pictures tell me is that their must be very few hunters who butcher deer themselves these days. Yeah, it takes a bit of time and effort, but a heck of a lot is lost in the whole process of hunting if one has someone else do the butchering. Hell, hunters don't want to walk to their stands on foot anymore. Forget about dragging without an ATV. These pictures tell us they surely don't want to butcher either, so I guess pulling the trigger and killing is the only thing hunters want to do. Quite sad when you stop and think about it.

[the blur]

1 weekend a year is the only time that happens.  So why would a processor have a fridge that can hold that many deer.  It's just not business practical.     But let's take a vote:

 

Would you leave your deer sitting out like that in the sun?

[waterweasle]

doc already said, as did I that the piles of deer don't sit there long, as they have guys working to get them inside and start processing, also stated that most of deer laid in the woods longer than they laid outside the processor, the processor might have the equipment because hes in the business of cutting meat up, while in the off season, I know the guy I used would be cutting beef up............but I guess he shouldn't have coolers for that, so that he can put out a good quality product and stay in business.............................ya know, next time I visit my mechanic buddy, I should ask him why he has 5 lifts in his shop, since I never see em all full all the time

[the blur]

A deer sitting out in the woods, is in the shade.  There are no oak trees over those deer.   Obviously the processor doesn't have a fridge, or the deer would be in there.