Went to breaking down a hind quarter this AM. Deboned big pieces on the tail gate and then brought it inside to cube. Never ceases to amaze me how much quality sausage/jerky meat comes off the rear and yes, I fully realize it can also be cut into steaks. Took me about an hour, but it is pretty clean. Lots think cuting it up yourself lets you know what is in it. I like to think I know what isn't in it. The sad part is that somes I make sauasage with will ahve even cleaner meat. I depend on the grinder to help me.

It's all vaccuum sealed and in the freezer now. Next step, pork.

Sure is a lot of meat on this hind quarters…. Butcher probably says the same about me. I like to cut the larger muscles and leave them whole then I can do whatever I want with them at a later time.

Yeppers, most of my hind quarters get cubed up for making sausage or ground meat to use in anything, but I always like to break a few doe hind quarters down into roasts. Rump/sirloin/bottom round/top round/eye of round/ etc. Those are cooked as either roasts, steaks, or turned into jerky. Shanks are for osso buco, I don't grind those anymore (normally).

Me & my knuckle draggers are headed back to the lease for the last weekend, after that it's sausage making and fishing time.

Many of the shanks we have are so full of thorns they feed the buzzards or coyotes. It is crazy to see how different they can be. Some are absolutely loaded with thorns some seem to have none at all.

I hear you. The lease I'm on right now in Paint Rock is solid cactus. So far, most of the needles in the shanks end up sideways between the skin and the meat. I don't understand how that happens. They can be LOADED with thorns/needles, but I can skin them off. Or, at least all that I can see. No issues surprisingly, so far anyway.

Oh man, hind-quarter broken down into whole-muscle chunks,
and slow-roasted in a porcelain-coated dutch-oven covered with 2-3 large onions - mmmmmm melts in your mouth tender & tasty.

Too precious for me for sausage - I save trimmings for that.

Even my wife and kiddos who 'hate venison' - gobble down the whole pot when I slow-roast a venison hind-quarter roast:

That looks right up my alley.

Especially with the weather we have had as of late!