Recently I read a comment that said venison costs around $24 a pound to go out and get it yourself. I was amazed as I’d always considered hunted meat to be free, so I did some thinking and some googling.
My family and I eat a lot of wild meat. I figure well over 200 lbs a year, probably 250 to 300 lbs. Farmers who raise captive elk sell hamburger for $10 a lb, roasts for $20 to $30, and tenderloin for $50 a pound. We make just about no hamburger, I leave it in whole pieces as much as possible. My wife just put 8 lbs in the crock pot this morning. Others would have ground it into hamburger or sausage. She added tons kaffir lime leaf, some lemongrass, various salt and chicken bullion type things, and made ope. Tender as all get out and delicious.
Priced as if it came from one of those farms the yearly meat value at my house would probably be four or five thousand dollars at least.
As long as we are here I’d urge you not to buy farm raised elk or deer. Ever consider what happens to the male deer before you buy the meat? Some high fence operations are primarily for “hunting” and the game can run around a few thousand acres, other high fence places are for meat and they sell the right to get a big set of antlers, by shooting them. People buy the right to shoot for a trophy, that doesn’t include meat. Buying meat from a farm that raises elk or deer might not be the kind of thing one would want to encourage.
What do we use?.. all the meat, including from the ribs and neck. Leg and rib bones don’t count in the weighing but we freeze them all for pho, also liver and heart and tongue. No lungs, had enough lungs. No kidneys, no small intestine like the woman in the photo is saving. No ears, no spine, no brain, no head.
And then there is the cost.
First thing I thought of was the tag. Out here you don’t buy a license, rather you buy a tag, for one animal, in a certain area amongst hundreds in the state, and for a certain week, certain species, certain sex, etc. It’s called a carcass tag because you must attach it to the carcass of the animal you shoot after filling out the proper info.
A tag costs $45 from memory. But then there are the tags I buy but don’t use, like the bear tag that runs concurrent to any seasons I hunt and is good for the adjoining two units also. I buy it knowing I won’t hunt bear, but just in case I see one best to have it. Another $45 dollars there but I consider the bear tag my donation towards conservation. So do I count the bear cost? And the combo small game and fish that I hardly ever seem to use. Good if I ever want to thin the yote population, or toss the hook in the water for trout.
Tags I’ll count as half way of a cost. I wouldn’t buy them if there wasn’t a possibility of using them.
And then there’s the rifle and clothes and ammo. I like having a rifle, I shoot anyway, I only use one rifle for hunting big game, same one I’ve always used, I even shoot the same bullet loaded with the same powder for all species. I hunt in the same clothes I wear everywhere except a cheap orange vest and hat I bought years ago. I wear that on the outside for safety. No rangefinder, no scent block, same binoculars I use for everything and have had forever.
Processing to turn carcass into neatly wrapped frozen packages? I like butchering my own meat, that way I know where it came from and how cleanly it was handled. I carefully trim and wash every piece before wrapping it in cling wrap and then butcher paper. I consider preparing the meat for the freezer to be a pleasant task. It’s free. A gift from the forest.
What of the cost of travel? Mostly I hunt local, sleep at home at night. I even work mornings and hunt the late afternoon. I guess there is gas, and wear and tear on the truck.
Hard to say what the cost of meat is. My kids have grown up eating wild meat. They ate the large vessels that lead to the heart cut into thin rings when they hardly had teeth. Rare elk tenderloin off the grill is a good thing. When my wife used to work weekends I’d cook tenderloin and slice it very thin right off the grill, they’d eat it as fast as I cut it. Whatever the cost I’d say the value of wild meat is far greater.
Please don’t buy wild meat. For now it’s nearly free, and certainly a lot less than $24 a pound.