Notes ·
What to know before you bring in a deer
The rate, what it does and does not include, and the decisions the shop will ask you to make.
Most of what slows a drop-off down is not the animal. It is deciding things at the shop that you could have decided in the truck.
The rate
Wild game processing is $1.50 per pound. That is its own rate, separate from livestock, which runs $1.10 per pound chilled seven days or less and $1.30 past seven days. All three are on the processing page.
What the per-pound rate covers is cutting and packing. Finished cuts are vacuum packed.
What is priced on top of it
This is the part that surprises people. Sausage, hot link sausage, beef jerky, and survival sticks made out of your animal are priced separately, on the smokehouse page. So are boudin, curing, grinding, and tenderizing, which are on the additional services list.
None of that is a surcharge. It is a different job. Cutting a deer into packages and turning the trim into forty pounds of link sausage are two pieces of work, and the sheet prices them that way.
The two questions to have an answer for
The backstrap: whole, or butterflied and tenderized. Whole keeps your options open and cooks as a roast or portions later. Butterflied and tenderized comes back ready for the pan. There is no wrong answer, but the shop will ask.
The trimmings. Pan sausage, link sausage, hamburger, survival sticks, summer sausage, stew, and chili. This is where most of a deer ends up, so it is worth thinking about before you are standing there.
The minimums apply here too
If you want sausage out of the trim, the same minimums govern: 20 pounds for link sausage, 16 for pan sausage, summer sausage, and survival sticks. One deer may or may not put that much trim toward it, depending on the animal and on how much you keep as cuts.
Ask about beef jerky when you call.
There is more on how the batches work in how much meat you need to bring for sausage.
Call first
Prices can change, and the shop will tell you what it can take and when. That matters more in season than out of it.
Open Monday through Saturday, 8 AM to 6 PM, closed Sunday. Call (979) 843-5211 before you haul out.
Questions