It seems like I have read some place that it is about 30 to 35%. And I think that is for any 4 legged creature. I sure a real butcher will chime shortly with the correct information.

I think I recall 60/40, weight to meat, but I can’t remember if that was dressed or live weight. Bet dressed but dunno. Somebody will enlighten us. 😀

On a large whitetail 100 lb. (averaged weight field-dressed hung and skinned) I normally net around 35-40 lbs of wrapped meat.(wrapping paper and saran wrap is included in the weight) 10-15 lbs. of that is burger and sausage. But I scrape as much meat as I can from the bones. That is not counting the bones I save to make stock with.

Troy

P.S.

Heart and lever counted separate.

Everyone so far is in the ballpark. Roughly one third as a rule

I worked in a small town butcher shop/slaughter house when I was younger. Cut up a pile of deer there and yes it will vary a bit but one third is a good estimate.

For average whitetail, I get about 1/3 dressed weight in deboned, lean meat. That means nothing added to ground meat. For large bucks in the rut, that percentage is slightly higher due to the amount of meat in the neck.

Speaking of neck meat, Westbrook…

I love a neck roast more than many cuts off a deer. I rub it with Italian type salad dressing…let it marinade a day, then roast low heat and slow… OMG…

I can eat on that till I get sick. Back here in “PA DUTCH COUNTRY” they make something called “mince meat”…which I use neck meat for…apples, currants, golden raisins, reg raisins, shredded orange peel, and a bunch of spices like cinnamon, ginger, clove, etc… simmer it all together, for a good while…then put in a pie shell… OMGosh… a small dab of bourbon on top and a slice of cheddar cheese and that’s DINNER…

Ok… back to David’s question: I couldn’t remember but 1/3 sounds about right but my old memory couldn’t dredge that up off the cuff. I bone all mine out (cept the neck). No sense freezing bones!

I’m reading a paper titled “persistence hunting by modern hunter-gatherers” by Liebenberg, and he compares meat yield of different hunting methods: with dogs, persistence (running down an animal), poison bow and arrow, spear and club. For the calculation he uses a 50% animal weight meat yield. So for say a 400 pound elk he would say there is 200 pounds of meat. That percentage comes from the work of Lee and observations of San bushman communities. And I was wondering why they calculate such a high meat yield compared to what seems to be a consensus here that 1/3 is our meat yield…? All I can think of is the bushmen eat more of the animal than I do: they cook the head and eat all meat from it, every edible organ (including testicles and brain), I’ve seen videos of them roasting hooves, splitting bones to get all the marrow, and even in the case of large animals like giraffes they eat the skin. A neat and different perspective, I thought.

Good question, Hoss.

Just because someone writes things…and “calculates” a percentage, doesn’t mean it’s accurate.

Having said that (doubting Thomas that I am), I think you have stumbled onto something…they likely eat everything if they’re subsistence hunters.

I read that Inuit run up to a shot caribou and eat the undigested stuff from the first stomach chamber (Caribou Salad) as their diet lacks greens!

I eat heart and liver but not brains… tongue or the likes you described. Meat, is MEAT! Edible parts beyond muscle tissue are not what I’d consider nor do I think is quoted in the 35% rule… 😯

At butchers college and the custom cutting shops I have worked at, we usually go that the animal will retain 60% of its live weight after dressing (skinned n gutted) and that your average boneless edible take will again be 60% of the dressed weight. This does not include the weight of edible organs (including tongue and heart), nor the meat that can be retrieved from the head. Also this will vary some due to different levels of fat cover (agriculture vs. forest fed Deer) and the amount of damage done by the hunter during the killing/dressing process.

As a side note you can often gather a pound or two of extra trim meat from an adult Deer’s jaw, length of nose, cheeks, and the hollows behind the eyes beneath the ears. Its not much but waste not want not eh?

Justin

(aka Wildschwein)

Doc Nock wrote: Speaking of neck meat, Westbrook…

I love a neck roast more than many cuts off a deer. I rub it with Italian type salad dressing…let it marinade a day, then roast low heat and slow… OMG…

I’ll second this. I like to bone out the entire neck (from atlas joint to the front of the chuck)one side at a time and then tie them together with a stuffing mixture between the two slabs. Then I rub it down with a mix of seasonings and slow cook for a day. Smells sooo good when you come home from a hard day at the shop and tastes even better than it smells!

The combinations of salts and low/slow cooking really breaks down the meat and makes the neck a roast option rather than trim.

Justin

(aka Wildschwein)

This will vary by species as well. Bears have much less meat per pound of body weight than a deer does. Feral hogs have even less.