Actual Weight of Meat - Can we be honest?

[RidgeRoamingRichard]

Co Elk - 2019

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The bull had an arrow above his spine, this was several weeks after the end of archery season. Bull did not look dramatically smaller than previous bulls I've killed although that arrow is like a factor in his weight.

I boned out all for quarters, each were kept as one big piece, I cut the back straps where they start to taper and include everything back in the hind quarter, I end them at the shoulder and everything else is "neck". I tried to be symmetrical by life happens. My scale has a tare function so this doesn't include bags.

Hindquarters
40lbs and 40.8lbs.

Front quarters
32.8 and 29.8

Tenderloins, Backstraps, Neck, and Brisket
26.2

Did not keep rib meat, heart, liver, or tongue.

Weighed all 4 bonedout bones, the hoof and skin below the knee was still on.
Hind bones 11lbs
Fronts 10.4

Weight of skull with very little cape 40lbs.
Weight after being skinned out, lower jaw, eyes, tongue removed. 25.1lbs

Total meat weight
169.6

Total pack out weight
194.7

You gonna bring me that heart, tongue, and rib meat next time?

 

[AlaskaHunter]

My concern has been the number of people that have said they boned out an elk and packed it out in one load. Better than I, I guess. The biggest quarter I ever weighed was 104 lbs. In more than 50 years I have found young cows and spikes at about 60 lbs per quarter. Most cows average about 70 lbs and mid aged bulls in the 80-90 lb range. When I say quarters that is spliting the half at the thiird rib.

This year I killed a three year old dry cow and packed the quarters out on horses. The quarters weighed 74 lbs on a spring scale. When I cut her up the yield ( on a balance beam doctors scale) was:
250 lbs subdivided into 71# of bone, 96 # of hamburger, 11# of trim, 72 # of wrapped steaks and roasts.

I bone the neck meat and take the meat off of ribs but not between the ribs. I put the front shoulder into hamburger because we eat more of that. The trim consists of bloodshot, fat, muscle tendon, veins and glands. I don't turn it into sausage or jerky. I just eat elk for dinner 2-3 times per week. My family even likes to eat it.

Boned Alaska moose...ridgetop hunting.
My hunting mentor taught me to try to limit each pack to 60 pounds and to shuttle...he has seen too many lower back injuries by friends packing super heavy loads.
First we get all the meat as far away from the gut pile as possible to try to prevent a bear encounter. Then we shuttle.

My first bull moose, we boned out for the super cub and had ten 50-60 lb meat bags. As my mentor butchered and boned I would pack a bag to the top of the ridge.
That was easy because of the rush of adrenaline. That evening each took a meat bag back to camp...8 more bags left.
The next 3 days I solo shuttled meat bags along the ridge to camp.
It was 3 miles one-way so the 60lb limit was key at least for me...it was pretty easy taking my time along the ridge top.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

You gonna bring me that heart, tongue, and rib meat next time?

I’ve come fill circle on it, I packed out every possible thing on a ton of animals. But there are certain cuts like heart that I was the one person in my family eating, and to be honest I didn’t find myself very enthusiastic about day 3 heart leftovers.
I had 3 caribou tongues and a deer heart in the freezer at the point that I shot that elk, and my wise use ethic said let some bear have it, rather than putting it in a landfill. I had llamas and time, I just chose not to. YMMV

 

[NEWHunter]

Anybody got pronghorn data?
I wish I had done a better job of keeping track the last few years

Post #90 FWIW

 

[ImBillT]

My concern has been the number of people that have said they boned out an elk and packed it out in one load. Better than I, I guess. The biggest quarter I ever weighed was 104 lbs. In more than 50 years I have found young cows and spikes at about 60 lbs per quarter. Most cows average about 70 lbs and mid aged bulls in the 80-90 lb range. When I say quarters that is spliting the half at the thiird rib.

This year I killed a three year old dry cow and packed the quarters out on horses. The quarters weighed 74 lbs on a spring scale. When I cut her up the yield ( on a balance beam doctors scale) was:
250 lbs subdivided into 71# of bone, 96 # of hamburger, 11# of trim, 72 # of wrapped steaks and roasts.

I bone the neck meat and take the meat off of ribs but not between the ribs. I put the front shoulder into hamburger because we eat more of that. The trim consists of bloodshot, fat, muscle tendon, veins and glands. I don't turn it into sausage or jerky. I just eat elk for dinner 2-3 times per week. My family even likes to eat it.

I don’t think anyone else in this thread is packing spine or ribs, and backstraps are separate, and they’re probably calling flank meat and brisket trim. I know I am. A “hind quarter” is just the round. A “front quarter” is just the shoulder, or shoulder and brisket. The backstraps and tenderloins are separate, the neck roast is separate, and again, all the meat around the belly and ribs is separate. If you do it like that, it’s a big dang bull with a “hind quarter” over 60lbs.

Most people packing an elk out in one trip are doing it with 2-3 people in that trip, and still probably leave a little something behind.

You got 179lbs if meat from that cow. That’s more than I would expect. I got 264lbs of meat from my bull last year. The big difference is that I only carried out 31lbs of bone, compared to your 71lns. A lot of people carry out zero pounds of bone. I do get the meat between the ribs, but that’s probably only 3-5lbs on an elk. I haven’t weighed it on it’s own, it just goes into the trim bag which gets ground for burger.

This year I was hoping to do about 65lbs per load. I had planned to debone the quarters to bring the 295lb total down to 264lbs, so that’s four loads at 66lbs. Close enough. A fifth load for head and cape, and a sixth for camp, gun, optics. If someone out there can carry 350lbs+ for six miles of wilderness in a single trip I’d love to watch.

 

[chuckchili]

Anybody got pronghorn data?
I wish I had done a better job of keeping track the last few years

Nothing too scientific... I didn’t weigh quarters or anything but weighed everything after I butchered it and it was packaged in vacuum bags. Total weight of the finished meat was 34 pounds. It came from what I would consider an “average” size buck for Colorado. That doesn’t include any extras like heart, liver or tongue but I did pick the bones pretty clean.

 

[406dn]

Nothing too scientific... I didn’t weigh quarters or anything but weighed everything after I butchered it and it was packaged in vacuum bags. Total weight of the finished meat was 34 pounds. It came from what I would consider an “average” size buck for Colorado. That doesn’t include any extras like heart, liver or tongue but I did pick the bones pretty clean.

That coincides with my experience with antelope. Most every one yielded 32 pounds of boneless packaged meat. Half steaks and half burger. The deer I kept track of yielded 55 pounds of packaged boneless meat, give or take a few pounds.

 

[thusby]

I’ve come fill circle on it, I packed out every possible thing on a ton of animals. But there are certain cuts like heart that I was the one person in my family eating, and to be honest I didn’t find myself very enthusiastic about day 3 heart leftovers.
I had 3 caribou tongues and a deer heart in the freezer at the point that I shot that elk, and my wise use ethic said let some bear have it, rather than putting it in a landfill. I had llamas and time, I just chose not to. YMMV

But man pickled heart is awesome. I admit I leave some of that stuff behind late in the season. I always regret it after the last piece of pickled heart on a cracker with a fried tomato is gone.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Nerds, don't forget to pack your scales or weigh everything as it's coming out of your pack at home!

 

[Pucky Freak]

40.8 lbs finished, after subtracting scapula weight and milk crates. Very similar-sized WT doe to the one I took last year in the same area, which I believe are likely a 1st degree relatives.

 

[wa_archer]

View attachment 117972

We only weighed one rear, it came in a 68 on a fish scale if I remember correct.

As a side my biggest 4x4 WA buck resulted 108 lbs of meat post processing. Unfortunately I didn't take any picsIs

View attachment 117972

We only weighed one rear, it came in a 68 on a fish scale if I remember correct.

As a side my biggest 4x4 WA buck resulted 108 lbs of meat post processing. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics.

Was my face that bad? yep 68 bone in. We weighed a rear and front shoulder, bone out this year at 98lbs. Which my back swears was more.

 

[Irrelevant]

Was my face that bad? yep 68 bone in. We weighed a rear and front shoulder, bone out this year at 98lbs. Which my back swears was more.

I just didn't want to post your photo. It's yours to post.

And that scale was wrong. Because my deer pack ended up being in the 120's with all the hunting gear and it was noticeably lighter than your elk this year.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Decent yield from WT buck fawn 26.8 lbs.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

@ElkFever2 MVP 2020, thank you!!

 

[Valgrego]

Three rabbit quarters (one too shot up to eat) plus saddle: 8.3 ounces in freezer bag. Book your llamas accordingly.

I had a squirrel boned out at about 4 oz

 

[Deleted member 28227]

3.5 year old Muley 150 Gross

Bone-in
18.7 Hindquarter
17.6 Hindquarter
10.6 Front
11.2 Front
4.9 BS
5.5 BS
9.3 Neck + Ribs + Misc
2.4 Hear + Tenderloins
Total 80.2lbs
Boned out and tallow trimmed - 61.7lbs

 

[LuketheDog]

CO buck I posted #981 in the deer thread. He had a nasty festered wound right above his shoulders, so as I trimmed around the infected stuff I lost roughly 1/2 the backstraps and lots of the meat on the rear part of his right shoulder, I'd guess ~15lbs of meat? The remainder was 75lbs hanging on the scale, bone-in.

Pics of the wound, top pic is his right side with the wound in center, bottom pic is his left side where you can see the large pocket of pus that extended way back on his ribs. It ran down and dripped on my boots

 

[LuketheDog]

A young cow: 141lbs for 4 bone-in quarters and neck, backstraps and tenderloins were an additional 14lbs9oz after trimming, for a total of just under 156lbs

 

[jbseamus83]

The cow elk I took this year. She was thick. I weighed every piece on a digital scale prior to packaging. Boned out weight was 113.5 lbs. Lost a little from front shoulder from the exit. Massive bone shards and damage there. Also left a little trim from around the ribs that I could have thrown in the grind pile. Might have totaled 6-7 lbs that I didn't get.

 

[Bowhuntrben]

113 pounds of boned out and fat removed meat. Opening day of archery buck in MN.