I do my own. We usually make it kind of a family thing, since my eldest son hunts with me. He always helps with the processing. In the past it has been him and me and my wife, but this year my wife was busy at home with Thanksgiving/Christmas preparation so my 10 and 13 year-old granddaughters pitched in. The youngest weighed and bagged with the Foodsaver while the eldest ran the grinder. My son took a turn at boning while I cut and cleaned up fat and silver skin. Usually I do the boning, but he wanted to give it a try. I get more meat off the carcass when I do it, but he will learn.
I think it is critical to properly take care of game from the time it hits the ground until it goes into the deep freeze. Too many seem to have lost that skill or just don't care to learn. I can see the need for programs like HUSH, but I think it gets mightily abused. Too many killers and not enough hunters. Killers don't care how the game is cared for because they don't plan to eat it anyway. I wasn't raised that way. Hunting meant putting meat on our table. Many times it meant the difference between a delicious meal and a peanut butter sandwich. Small game was much more plentiful than dollars during my childhood. Holes in my pants wasn't a fashion statement, nor were patches considered taboo. They still aren't for me until the wife tells me there isn't enough left to stitch a patch to! Sorry for the rant, guys and gals.
I'm trying to work up to canning deer. The thing that has held me back has been childhood memories of government canned beef my mom bought from a local "damaged and unclaimed freight" store. When she opened the tin can, you could smell it all over the house...and it was not a good smell! About the best way to make it palatable was to make barbecued beef with it. To this day my wife can't understand why I don't care for barbecued beef. I know it's a mental thing because my uncle always canned all his deer, and I've eaten an liked it before, so I'm going to give it a shot.
I'm about out of freezer space, so if I take a late season deer, I'll have to do the canning idea with some of it. The rest will go to a local locker for deer brats, which are awesome by the way!
Great thread!
