Carcass Efficiency - Meat Yield

[@theroedeerguy]

Wondering if anyone has taken the time to weigh out what sort of meat yield their butchery has achieved.

For example, say a 15kg larder weight Roe deer carcass in its jacket, head and feet off.

Once skinned and boned out what sort of meat yield have you managed 7-8 kg?

 

[Phil fox man]

not much left on this fallow ,47kg in total harvested.

 

[Rhodesianjess]

I've always used the train of thought that larder weight in KG is what you get in usable meat in LBS. So your 15 kg would yield 15lbs .
Exactly as you described. Quite often a bit more but good estimate.

 

[Jamouk]

Also depends on where its hit !

 

[@theroedeerguy]

Also depends on where its hit !

Fair point, for clarity I’m talking neck/head or heart shots with minimal meat damage.

 

[TringSaint]

Wondering if anyone has taken the time to weigh out what sort of meat yield their butchery has achieved.

For example, say a 15kg larder weight Roe deer carcass in its jacket, head and feet off.

Once skinned and boned out what sort of meat yield have you managed 7-8 kg?

My best so far was 6kg from a cwd.
That’s haunches boned out but kept whole, loins and fillets trimmed and cleaned and larger shoulder muscles cut for stewing and everything else minced.

 

[T.eddie]

Think I had between 7-8kg off of a H/L shot roe buck that was 16.5kg larder weight. Both shoulders were knackered with bone splintering etc and as my daughter eats it as well I didn't want to take the risk

 

[StephenToast]

Approx 50% return from overall carcass weight has been my experience.

 

[Millerich]

I seem to remember from the meat hygiene part of my veterinary degree (many years ago) the 50% rule, i.e deadweight 50% of live weight and meat yield 50% of dead weight.

 

[takbok]

I work on roughly 50% from a carcass in the skin as well, less if I discard a shoulder.

 

[75]

As above - approx 50% but a lot depends on how it's cut. If you bone everything out then you end up with less obviously.

 

[NoIDeer]

I've always used the train of thought that larder weight in KG is what you get in usable meat in LBS. So your 15 kg would yield 15lbs .
Exactly as you described. Quite often a bit more but good estimate.

^^^ This.

 

[VSS]

A fallow doe with a larder weight of 36kg (guts out, head & legs off, skin on) will yield about 20kg of saleable meat (all boned out).

For budgeting purposes, you can roughly assume that the larder weight in kg, multiplied by 10, will give you the approximate retail value in £s of the butchered carcass.
(So a 36kg larder weight doe retails at around £360).
That formula seems to work fairly accurately with fallow and reds. Not tried it with other species.

(Obviously the return on the carcass goes up if you do further processing, such as burgers, sausages etc).

 

[Island]

I butchered a yearling buck just last weekend.

It was lardered at 10.8kg, hung in the jacket for 8 days to dry before skinning and yielded around 5.5kg meat.

In all likelihood I might have done a little better except for the fact that I am to butchery what Ghengis Khan was to international relations...

 

[Tim.243]

Wondering if anyone has taken the time to weigh out what sort of meat yield their butchery has achieved.

For example, say a 15kg larder weight Roe deer carcass in its jacket, head and feet off.

Once skinned and boned out what sort of meat yield have you managed 7-8 kg?

No one yet has mentioned the Fallow Fat weight, a farmer had a 80kg dressed Buck I shot for him, 15kg of fat they cut and weighed! So starting off at 65kg less the hide and bones weight.
The last MJ i weighed was 25lb in the fur with 4 legs and b/straps were 11lb as my friends wife likes to roast one haunch on the bone and chop up the rest.

 

[Firefly]

30 % larder weight lost to skin and bones on chest shot fallow.

 

[Bowland blades]

when cutting for the house..... I look at getting the best cuts in the most suitable format and size , after that its dog meat ! Quality not quantity imho .

 

[Hunter300]

My experience is it depends on what you do with the “stripped carcass”
As I don’t have the luxury of a dog, so I always dissect the “carcass” and cook it in the pressure cooker. When done this with a Muntie I yielded 1.2kg of “pie meat”…..

 

[Hunter300]

If I might add it was a head shot. The neck yields quit a bit of “pie meat”

 

[Phil fox man]

mmmmmmm pies