haw many pounds, net, of deer/ venison does your family need to make it thru the off season.
how many animals do you have to kill usually to keep game in the freezer till onening day.
for us, 5 people. about 8 of our smallish SE whitetails makes it. thats about 2 pounds per person a week.

How much venison do we "NEED"? Absolute zero.

I am a cattle raiser and do contract work for the poultry industry, and my family eats mostly beef and chicken. If I never killed another deer, my family would never miss it.

in our family, the more deer the better. i've got four kids (all boys) and they eat like horses. my wife is not fond of deer, but will eat it on occasion and she does like antelope quite a bit.

with myself and the three older boys hunting, we have opportunities to put at least 4 deer in the freezer each year, more if we want to get B tags. this year we got three and i would have been happy to get one or two more.

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I am a cattle raiser and do contract work for the poultry industry, and my family eats mostly beef and chicken. If I never killed another deer, my family would never miss it.

I'm the same way my family still Ranches always lots of beef around. We have a lot of pork, and lamb around with all the support we give the local 4-H clubs. It is actually far more expensive for me to hunt, than it is for my beef when you figure cost per pound. I'm single and do eat a lot of the game I hunt but I give a lot away as well, one mule deer will last me till next season. If I get an elk I'd better be looking to give most of it away or else I'll be throwing it out by next season. Pronghorn never last long as I have most of it turned into summer sausage or jerky, gone pretty much by the first of January.

I took 3 deer this year. Ended up with roughly 180 pounds of total packaged meat.

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Originally posted by 30378:
I took 3 deer this year. Ended up with roughly 180 pounds of total packaged meat.

wow, bones included or is that de-boned?

Although I enjoy it on occasion, I'm not a devout venison eater in the forms of steaks, roasts, burger, etc.

So...when I had my Colo. mule deer processed, I kept only the loins (whole) and backstraps (steaks) as raw meat. The rest resulted in 54 lbs. of three types of summer sausage smoked with applewood -- regular, hot and jalapena & cheese -- in equal parts, and all of it is delicious.

Eash sausage was a 3-lb. roll, so I cut them in half, vacuum packed each half and put them in the freezer. -TONY

Last year we killed 4 deer, and had access to feral hogs, the meat of about 4 javelina, 20+ jackrabbits and an equal number of cottontails.

Add that to the fish we catch, and the lamb and goats we raise, and we actually buy very little beef or chicken.

My wife is one of those "Sixties Kids" that has some weird food allergies, and one of them is to commercialy raised and processed beef.

If we have put in for a cow tag or two in Colorado, that along with the stuff I mentioned in opening sentence, sets us up where that we don't buy meat from the store, unless we want to.

Lora uses ground venison just like lots of folks use ground beef.

There are 4 of us, and we go thru a lot of game meat in a year, plus we give a good bit away to family and friends that don't hunt.

Gave the last deer I killed away.Do not like venison and prefer to never eat it. Much prefer good beef pork or chicken to all other meat.

We eat mainly all buffalo as you can probably guess from my screen name. It's always strange when someone shoots a buffalo and they give 3/4ths of it away because they can't eat it all. Most of our clients eat at home very infrequently so the amount of meat we may eat in a month lasts these people years. Also, we get guys that go on and on about how much they love deer and then you find out they are talking about jerky, salami, etc.

I brought home two deer from MT. I will eat it all mostly myself, with a little helpfrom the wife, prior to next fall. I can get the wife to eat a little steak but she uses alot of venison burger, so other than the best cuts from then hind and backstraps, all of ours goes to burger.

hamburgers
taco rice
spagetti (sp)
sloppy joes
chili
meatload
neck roasts
chicken fried steak
swiss steaks
rare straps and loins (yum)
Carolina BBQ'd hash
deer sausage
w/ grits and red eye gravy
we eat alot. necks get cut into roasts and front shoulders into 1-2" cubes for hash. loins go whole and anything else finds it way to ground and sasuage.

The above number is packaged boneless meat. Steaks, backstraps, tloins, hamburger meat, and sausage. The hamburger has 5% beef mixed in. The link sausage has cheese & jalepenos mixed in.

We my wife and myself, live on wild game. I like a beef steak now and then, I detest chicken and pork, (and I used to farm and raise hogs). I prefer pronghorn, elk and then deer. And in that order.

We will eat an elk a deer and a pronghorn each year up to the next hunting season, some times running out. I try to save some steaks and hamburger for hunting camp. When my four sons were home, we easily ate 3 to 4 deer, 3 to 4 pronghorn, and an elk or two, all gone by the next season. I am not very fond of Muledeer either. I learned this year, from an elderly friend, to let a muley hang longer than any other game animal. He hangs his for a month. And he loves muledeer meat. I will try it next year if it isn;t to hot during season, and if I draw a tag!

My favorite is kabobs on the gril with fresh veggies out of my garden.

if anyone is looking for good ways to use all of that venison, click here for 23 pages of game recipes.



if anyone has a good recipe to leave behind, so much the better!

My wife and I love venison. Steaks,chili,jerky and sausage. She actually likes it better than beef. Good stuff.

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I prefer pronghorn, elk and then deer. And in that order.

Glad to see that Lora and I are not the only folks that rate pronghorn so highly.

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Glad to see that Lora and I are not the only folks that rate pronghorn so highly

Chops on the grill, kabobs on the grill, and stew! MMMMMMMM MMMMMM MMMMMMMM!

I took 3 deer this year,and gave most of the first two to family and friends who for one reason or another didnt get out this year.I could eat venison every day,but the wife and son do not.I probably have about 50 lbs .

Four deer will usually last us from season to season. Only got one so far, and rifle season is over. Flintlock comes in after Christmas so I'll try for more then.

My wife and I eat mostly wild game...2 elk, 6 deer and 2 goats should take care of us this year again. Last year we had the same plus 2 more goats and I was out of meat in September. I also raise our own pork and we have one of them in the freezer too!!!

I'm really lucky that within a 30 min drive is the best damn sausage maker. I get a variety of sausage made up when we get a deer and its a real treat. Incidentally.. after he mixes it with pork fat etc you about double your meat volume. Ummm tasty stuff.
A deer and a moose usually does the 2 of us for several months.

I also like antelope the best, if they have been shot cleanly and not chased through two counties before the shot.

I have had antelope that went fast and some that stayed in the freezer a long time. When our 2 kids were home 2 deer would last about 7-8 months, for the 2 of us it is enough for a year. Elk would do the family about a year, for us it is 1-1/2 years so we share it. The one moose I shot went 2 years with 2 kids. We usually by 1/2 a hog a year to keep up with my wife's pork chop jones. Gianni

this year our hunting group of 6 got three moose. Then my brother and I got a couple of muley's, in a couple of weeks we will be out looking for an antlerless elk. So I got half a moose, a little bit of mule deer, lots of ruffed grouse (15 or so) and hopefully some elk coming up. I make a fair amount of jerky so I can go through the meat fairly quickly. I don't have to buy a lot of beef and chicken but I do sometimes anyway just to break up the taste buds a little.

I generally take 5 or 6 deer. I give one to an aunt, one to a family friend, two to a cousin and the keep one for myself.
I eat venison just as I would beef.

A deer is overkill for me and my wife, but at least she likes it. I normally get the butcher to do some small steaks and roasts, some sausage mixed with pork, some ground mixed with beef burger, and a whole bunch of jerky. I love me some jerky. And the ribs. Give them to me whole, please. They need to spend a few hours seasoned and wrapped in foil on my grill at insanely low heat.

I shot a moose once when I was younger/living with parents. I thought we'd never finish it! Still my favorite game meat. If I shoot another, I expect to get a few months out of it, even after handing some out to friends and family to try. Excellence!

Wild game makes up about 95% of the meat our family eats in a year. Last year I had 1 Elk 2 Deer and 2 Antelope and it barely made it through to this years hunting season. I like beef but its kinda pricey, on occasion we will buy beef steaks for a change of pace but it costs us $30 for one meal! its sure good but too expensive for us to eat on a regular basis.