Just curious.
Also, please justify the quartering/backstraps method. I don't understand it

We do the "full" way, because wasting meat is very frowned upon, at least for/by us.

Thanks!

Gut/skin or backstraps/legs single choice
	Gut, skin, and take most, if not all, salvageable meat
	Cut out backstrap, with or without hide, and hind quarters (maybe front)
Votes accepted starting: 08/14/14 02:21 AM
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I gut, skin and use everything except for the ribs.
Didn't see that as an option so I voted quartering even though I do more.
Then use the ribs for the dogs.

When I was a kid , the Ranch we hunted had some illegals picking pecans one season. We shot a deer and they asked for the guts to eat. I have to say I do not take it that far to eat the guts. I was open to giving the poor guys the hams also, but they only wanted the guts.

I get everything I can get. I have too much respect for the life I took.

You do understand that quartering doesn't mean taking only the hind quarters. Once the backstraps are removed, there is basically no meat left between the shoulders and the hams. The two front shoulders and the two hams make up the four parts "quarters". The meat taken home from an animal that has been field dressed and quartered is: the neck, the two front shoulders, the two hams, the backstraps, the tenderloins, and the heart and liver if you wish. The justification for doing this is so it will fit in an ice chest....

^^This^^

Cept for hogs.The giant ones can feed the buzzards for all I care.

I mean ribs included.

The only things we don't eat are the guts and of course inedibles like bones (-heart, (liver, kidneys if exotic), and occasionally lungs). Sometimes we even have brain, tongue, and hooves/leg bone marrow.

I save all the meat and the heart. Don't mess with the liver or other organs. Even if it was okay to not take it all, we need every bit. It's tough to make 8 Texas deer last a whole year for us.

We pretty much take every scrap we can get including shoulders, neck, even the flank in some cases

A properly prepared neck is about my favorite. It also makes excellent tamales... Chital has me beat eating the bone marrow. I hit the big bones with a hammer and let the dog have them...

X3

Those of you who use everything. How do you cook the intestines ?
Do you eat the intestines on every animal you harvest?

With a knife...a chain saw is too messy.










I save the heart - makes great chili
I save the liver - makes great coyote and bobcat bait
And all salvageable meat, I only buy bacon any more.

It's called cowboy stew around here.
Clean and boil, then throw in pot with rabbit food.

As quick as possible

We keep all the meat. Backstraps, tenderloin, front and back legs meat off the neck, flank, and cut inbetween the ribs and get that meat too. Sometimes we don't use the shank if it is too full of thorns which is common.

I just take quarters, backstraps, and tenderloins.

Have never tried the neck meat, but I've heard it's good. Have taken the heart and it's very good.

Salvage everything but ribs (used to get them but they ended up staying in freezer so long they freezer burned every year), and no guts/organs. Neck goes into roast, as do shoulders. Backstraps, tenderloins and some of back hams into fry meat (sometimes I like to grill the tenderloins). The rest goes into either fry meat, sausage or hamburger (lower legs front and back stripped into jerky meat). Usually I attempt to get 3 does for the freezer.

gut, skin and take all salvageable meat here. I used to keep heart & liver, as my mom really liked those (me too when she fixed them). We made hindquarter & back straps into steaks/roasts, pretty much everything else went into hamburger/chili or sausage. Occassionally, we would keep a whole shoulder for mom to make a bone-in roast. Same for feral hogs although I don't recall keeping heart/liver from those.

I have never understood this, to me it sounds hipocritical. You have respect for the deers life and small hogs life, but the big ones can go to the buzzards? For the record I dont shoot hogs and leave em lay, but dont have a problem with people doing so. But when people say its disrespectful or unethical to not take the ribs on a deer but will leave a whole hog lay I find it ridiculous.

And forgot to say we take shoulders/quarters, straps, tenderloins, and as much neck as possible

While I don't necessarily condone a willy-nilly half-effort processing job, I'm not going to get bent out of shape about it. Where this thread will eventually end up: an episode of South Park, just like the latest HF threads.

You see, no one can draw the line where waste begins. Where is it? "I took the rib meat, but I left meat on the skull." You wasteful hunter, you!

Bottom line is that if your deer (or other animal) doesn't look like a museum-quality skelton when you get done with it, you've wasted something.

Why don't we just worry about our own processing methods and let the other guy worry about his. Life will be a lot happier that way.

Finally, it bears mentioning that nature, in fact, wastes nothing.

I do both
deer, gut and skin then whole thing goes to processor.

hogs, sometimes whole animal other times hind quarters and back strap

justification... when it's hot and it's important to get hog iced down quick
OR when we trap several and don't want to clean them all

The reg book says you need to take/attempt to take the 4 legs and backstraps.

Hogs fit in a different book to me. I shot a trap full of 20-30 pounders couple weeks ago. They weren't the fattest looking things in the world, it was hot, I had a lot to get done and it was the last day of the trip leaving at noon. They fed the scavengers and I don't feel bad at all. Hogs are an invasive species and a nuisance. I couldn't care less if people shoot them and never eat/attempt to eat one. Javalina, deer etc. I feel differently about they naturally belong here.

Neither one. I can use a gutless method and take all four quarters, the back straps, tender loins and the neck meat as well if I so choose.

With a sharp knife as I see fit.