# How much does a whole deer cost....



## kitchenelf (Dec 7, 2004)

that has been ground into hamburger and sausage?

Anyone have any idea?  Does the neighborhood of $350.00 sound right?

Strange question I know, but I can't find the answer anywhere else - thanks!!


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## Bangbang (Dec 7, 2004)

I only paid about a buck a pound.


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## Bangbang (Dec 7, 2004)

kitchenelf said:
			
		

> that has been ground into hamburger and sausage?
> 
> Anyone have any idea?  Does the neighborhood of $350.00 sound right?
> 
> Strange question I know, but I can't find the answer anywhere else - thanks!!



No freakin way :!:


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## middie (Dec 7, 2004)

weird here... i think if you hit the deer you get it free if you want it.
as long as it's reported to the authorities. but to buy it from a meat market... i have no idea.


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## kitchenelf (Dec 7, 2004)

Someone is claiming it in an insurance claim - but yes, you do get to keep it if you hit one here - and don't even have to report it.  :?  yuck

Thanks bangbang.


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## Bangbang (Dec 7, 2004)

So did ya get one? I want one of those Carolina Hogs :!:


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## kitchenelf (Dec 7, 2004)

lol - no, I didn't get one - I just have to know if what the people say they paid for it is correct - and they say they paid $350.00 for a deer that has been ground up into hamburger and made into sausage.  But even if they did it themselves I need to know how much it would cost them to buy it to replace it.


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## amber (Dec 7, 2004)

kitchenelf said:
			
		

> that has been ground into hamburger and sausage?
> 
> Anyone have any idea?  Does the neighborhood of $350.00 sound right?
> 
> Strange question I know, but I can't find the answer anywhere else - thanks!!



Ask the butcher?  It would depend on their time I suppose.


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## wasabi (Dec 7, 2004)

Bangbang said:
			
		

> I only paid about a buck a pound.


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## kitchenelf (Dec 7, 2004)

lmao wasabi -  that didn't even register!


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## middie (Dec 8, 2004)

i just now caught it too. i'm blonde so it takes me awhile


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## kitchenelf (Dec 8, 2004)

He musta learned that from WayneT


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## Bangbang (Dec 8, 2004)

wasabi said:
			
		

> Bangbang said:
> 
> 
> 
> > I only paid about a buck a pound.




He he he :!:


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## Michael in FtW (Dec 8, 2004)

This is one of those mystery questions ... that doesn't have enough facts to really support a good answer .. and enough blank spots to make me wonder. Kind of like, "one car leaves city A and another car leaves city B 30 minutes later ... when will they meet up?"

This sounds like an insurance claim ...

Replacement cost? How many pounds of venison? Commercially farm raised ground venison goes for about $6.98/lb - cubed for chili or stew for about $8.95/lb ... sausage falls inbetween. Of course, commercial kitchens get it cheaper. The source I use, on a bad year, is www.brokenarrowranch.com - several store around me carry their products for about $2/lb more than I can buy it direct.

A deer taken to a processor (butcher) by a hunter will cost about $45-$75 for processing. Generally, that runs around $1-$2 per pound of meat. An 80-pound deer may only produce 35-lbs of meat after processing.

Another thing to consider are the game laws of your state. It is illegal for a hunter to sell "game animal" meat he has hunted, and it is also illegal to buy such meat from a hunter, in all the states that I know. A hunter can, however, donate the meat to a not-for-profit charity to feed the needy. Thus, if a person claims they paid a hunter $350 for a whole deer that they had processed into ground meat/sausage and for some reason it spoiled and they are trying to recoup the cost ... like on a home owners policy because the electricity went out and they lost everything in the freezer ... the insurance company would not be liable because it was an illegal purchase.

Of course .. having said all that ... I'm sure you will now "drop the other shoe" and make everything I said irrelevant.


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## kitchenelf (Dec 8, 2004)

Yes, insurance claim is correct.  I don't know where they obtained the meat from originally - I guess my question is if they were to legally buy it to replace from "some" source to replace what they lost how much would it be for an average size deer - average dollar.

But what you told me is very helpful.  And now I'm going to bed!!!  I'm done with this claim until tomorrow.


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## tweedee (Dec 8, 2004)

1 deer. Ok! In the state of Kansas it costs $18 for a residental fishing license and for an extra $3  you can have a hunting license.  So how much does a deer cost?, $3 plus the price of the bullet... about .5 cents.


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## crewsk (Dec 8, 2004)

OK, a coulpe of years ago hubby saw someone hit a deer in front of the place he works & the only damage done to the deer was all 4 legs broken. It wasn't deer season so he called DNR(Dept. of Natural Resources) & the guy told him to shoot it & have it processed. A DNR officer came out & got there before hubby had a chance to shoot the animal & took care of that part for him & gave him a card for a guy that would process it(he also signed the card & put his phone # on it if the processor had any questions). You have to be very careful doing this though, if it's not deer season & you take one in to be processed, the processor can & most likely will call DNR & your butt could be sittin' in jail, to avoid this, make sure you call DNR brfore hand & they will check everything out & keep you out of trouble. Anyway, hubby had the deer processed & it was only about $50. We got hamburger, cubed steaks, roast, & I don't remember what else. It was the best deer meat that I have ever had because it was a fairly young doe.


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## Michael in FtW (Dec 8, 2004)

Something about this "whole deer ground into hamburger and sausage" thing keeps making the "Danger Will Robinson" thing go off in the back of my mind. I've never known any hunter that ever did that.

If the meat had been purchased from a commercial "farm raised and processed" entity - it would have been in pounds - with a $ per pound rate. The person should know how many pounds they purchased, and what they paid for it.

If the person was a hunter who harvested and had the deer processed - they should know how many pounds they got. They would also have a game report card and an authorization number to possess it - in accordance with NC game laws.

If they received the meat as a gift from a hunter ... they should have some ideas as to how many pounds it was. They would, by NC law, have to retain in writing the name and contact info for the hunter that "gave" it to them for as long as they were in possession of any of the meat.

If they purchased the meat from a hunter - there are 3 crimes ... selling it, buying it, and possessing it. In this case the insurance company would be no more liable to pay off than if they had purchased a stolen car and it got stolen from them.

The question of how much a deer weighs is not that simple. How much does a human weigh? To guage the average weight of a deer you need to know the relative age, sex, when harvested, and in which county. With that info - you can go to http://www.wildlife.state.nc.us/index.htm and contact a Wildlife Service Agent for the appropriate county and get an average weight for the deer harvested in that area - he/she can also probably help you guage the approximate yield (lbs of meat). If the person obtained the meat legally, they could provide all of this information.

Commercially farm raised and processed ground venison can go from $5-$7 per pound retail. But, your still missing the answer to the big question ... how many pounds?


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## ronjohn55 (Dec 8, 2004)

We've got some venison in the freezer right now, chops and sausage. 

A note about venison sausage. The stuff we get is from family that processes their own deer. It's usually made from the lesser cuts, and has a fair amount of fat, usually pork fat for us, added in since venison is a pretty lean meat that makes lousy sausage without it (but darned fine jerky!)

Odds are any venison sausage someone has isn't 100% venison. 

John


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## Lifter (Dec 8, 2004)

Absolutely true, ronjohn!

When dressing out the animal, considerable care would be taken to eliminate all of the very tallowy fat present, and to replace these with about 40% pork fat, by volume...

Would definitely include the "lesser cuts", but sometimes all the animal except rosts and prime steaks...

We used to call the "Bambi's"  "sausage makers", as that was about all the youngest were good for...

For Canada, the situation is identical to that represented by others in the USA...sale of game meat is expressedly forbidden...granted you can receive same as a "gift" from a licensed hunter...outside, again, as has been said, of "commercially raised" deer...

Lifter


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## Michael in FtW (Dec 8, 2004)

I just discovered that you can't use the three letter word beginning with S and ending in X - with an E in the middle, to talk about if a deer is a buck or a doe on here.  That word shows up as ***.


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## MJ (Dec 8, 2004)

hrrmmm. Imagine that. Thanks for telling everyone.


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## Lifter (Dec 8, 2004)

Try "gender", Michael!

LOL!

Lifter


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## -DEADLY SUSHI- (Dec 8, 2004)

It cost a BUCK!


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## Michael in FtW (Dec 8, 2004)

Sorry SUSHI - BangBang already beat you to the "buck a pound" ...


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## -DEADLY SUSHI- (Dec 8, 2004)

Oh....  :?  Crap.


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## middie (Dec 8, 2004)

lol


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## Michael in FtW (Dec 8, 2004)

I just thought of one ....

It will either cost you a buck or two ... or a little doe ...

sorry - just had to do that ..... :twisted:


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## DampCharcoal (Dec 9, 2004)

Around here it only costs $30 to process a deer but there's no guarantee you'll get YOUR deer. It's possible to bring in a 250 lb. buck and get back a 150 lb. doe and it isn't against the law! I'm not a hunter and it still makes me mad!


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## auntdot (Dec 9, 2004)

It sounds, and I am guessing somewhat here, that kitchenelf is reviewing a policy that has 'replacement' value.

As such, it really doesn't matter what the item cost you, you have a right to the value to replace it.

Found it in a dumpster or mortgaged your house to buy it, whatever it costs to replace the item, you get (hope you never have to fight with an insurance company, we have.  No matter how your policy is worded you have to fight for every dollar).

Replacement insurance is more expensive, but for catastrophic damage it is very nice to have.

And we have had too many of them.


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## pdswife (Dec 9, 2004)

Bangbang said:
			
		

> I only paid about a buck a pound.




LOL...  I should tell my husband that... I think he's spent about $40,000 if you include the new truck that he HAD to have since you can't throw a dead and bloody deer in the back seat of out  Impala....   4 years of buying hunting equipment and camo gear... but, no deer have been shot. That deer meat is going to be worth it's weight in gold if he ever brings one home.  LOLOLOL!  UGH!


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## -DEADLY SUSHI- (Dec 9, 2004)

PDS thats funny!     $40,000 huh?  wow!


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## kitchenelf (Dec 9, 2004)

In this particular instance there's no fight - I just have to find out how many pounds they had and what they can buy it for - yep, whatever it costs to replace it is what they are owed.


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## DampCharcoal (Dec 9, 2004)

Pds, why couldn't he just tie the deer to the top of the car? That's what everyone else around here does if they don't have a truck!


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## Michael in FtW (Dec 10, 2004)

kitchenelf said:
			
		

> In this particular instance there's no fight - I just have to find out how many pounds they had and what they can buy it for - yep, whatever it costs to replace it is what they are owed.



That goes back to where I got into this discussion ... how many pounds did they have? A "whole deer" isn't an answer ... any more than saying you had a whole fish. If they legally hunted it and got it processed, they will know how many pounds they got. Replacement cost ... buying at K-Mart or Neiman Marcus? For ground venison - figure about $5-$6 per pound.


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## Lifter (Dec 10, 2004)

Being one who has paid a stunning price for each fishing "lure" that just doesn't dam well "work", as well as the licensing fees, let alone the costs of getting from here to there (let alone back again!)...let me state that the "process" was truly enjoyable..

If anyone wants to shoot deer, be aware in "NorthWestern Ontario" (this province is HUGE!) a "deer tag" enables a hunter to "take" up to seven animals, as the deer are carrying some sort of "bug" that is fatal to moose, and as a result, you "cannot find a moose", wheras deer are overrunning the cities and towns...

(You are also welcome to come and shoot off the pestilence of black bears, except in Spring, where our government "caved in" to the Sierra club some years back, and now we get "infested" with these "hungry" critters in cities, towns and campsites)

Eating "spring bear" from experience several years back...after they've used up most if not all the stored body fat, and"pigged out" on the "runing fish" in the streams and creeks, but "before" the blueberries and ants get into their diet, , its halfway between a good porkloin and a roast of beef, albeit without the fat that builds up the gravy...you have to sort of "steam" it...but a great taste, and a great "sandwich"...

I'm sure the bears would say much the same review on any of "us", were they given an opportunity...

Lifter


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## mudbug (Dec 10, 2004)

Lifter said:
			
		

> I'm sure the bears would say much the same review on any of "us", were they given an opportunity...Lifter



"Humans. The other wild life."


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## mudbug (Dec 10, 2004)

On this subject, here's something interesting that came in the email today:

EMIGRANT, Mont.--Deercrash.com--run by the University of Wisconsin-Madison--is not recommended bedtime reading before a road trip over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house. But it is a reality check on a pullulating U.S. highway hazard. Deer-vehicle crashes in 2003 produced 367 human fatalities. Even for survivors, an encounter with a leaping stag takes a toll: The University of North Carolina's Highway Safety Research Center cites a 1995 study claiming that the property damage from such accidents that year was $1.2 billion. 
Deer danger on U.S. highways is reaching epidemic proportions. Take Michigan: The state has an estimated 1.75 million white-tailed deer, and when mating season rolls around, they literally take to the streets. The costs, in life and property, prompted Gov. Jennifer Granholm to declare October "Michigan Car-Deer Crash Safety Awareness Month." 
The omnivorous bear may appear a more threatening animal than the deer, but Bambi and his kind are statistically more dangerous to the average American. Lacking predators--if you don't count the automobile--adorable, big-eyed does have become a national menace. (Mind you, I'm not passing the buck: Males are a part of the problem too.) 
Yet where there is crisis there is also opportunity. That's what New Zealand found when it turned to the market to solve its feral population explosion more than two decades ago. At a conference here hosted by the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), based in nearby Bozeman, former New Zealand cabinet member Maurice McTigue described a uniquely Kiwi solution to too many deer chasing too few plants--what I like to call stagflation. Not only did the market solve the New Zealanders' problem, but the plan also created a whole new export industry. 

God didn't put deer in New Zealand, but settlers decided he had erred. They imported a small number--perhaps as few as 50--some 100 years ago to add to the ambience. With nothing to eat them, the red deer and wapiti (elk) were soon breeding with each other and multiplying like mathematicians. It didn't take long for the government to brand these newcomers "noxious pests." For New Zealanders, Mr. McTigue says, the problem wasn't so much highway danger as the fact that the deer "were enormously destructive to the native forests." 
Government culling programs sought to eradicate the deer on the grounds that they were not native. Yet the ubiquitous critters flourished as long as the sale of deer meat in New Zealand was illegal. Paradoxically, as Mr. McTigue explains, once commercial deer farming was legalized in the early 1980s, the unleashed animal spirits of entrepreneurs provided the solution: Aspiring deer farmers went out and captured the varmints in large numbers. One remarkable exploit related by Mr. McTigue was a "deer hunter" jumping from a helicopter onto the back of a wapiti mix, wrestling it to the ground and tying up its legs. 
Yet how the herds were rounded up is not nearly as important as the fact that, by assigning value to them, businesses had an incentive to bring them in. Mr. McTigue holds that the deer-farming idea was the precursor to New Zealand's free-market revolution, the start of "thinking differently" about solutions to the country's problems. 

There are still wild deer in New Zealand but farming has brought the populations under control. Concerns about disease outbreaks originating among the farmed deer and spreading to the wild deer have not been borne out. In fact tuberculosis, once a problem among wild deer, is nonexistent on farms. 
Not only has forest vegetation been preserved by putting a price on deer but venison is a booming export industry, with New Zealand winning 40% of the world venison market. Remarkably, according to Mr. McTigue, Canada--a deer haven--gets three-quarters of its venison from New Zealand. He says the other amazingly lucrative market is antler racks, which currently fetch about $80 a pound in Asia, where they are ground up and used as aphrodisiacs. Hides are sent to Asia as well for tanning. 
Americans provide New Zealand's second largest market for venison, after Europe. There have been some attempts to legalize deer farming in the U.S., but the regulations have been highly restrictive and limited; selling hunted-deer meat remains illegal. So while New Zealand sets market forces loose to rein in the stampede and create wealth, the U.S. leaves population control up to the American driver and forfeits, as road kill, a marketable and valuable resource.


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## thumpershere2 (Dec 10, 2004)

The cost of venison will vary in each situation. The cost I would think would include license, ammo, processing in an insusrance case. If the whole deer were to be made into venison sausage it would cost about $350.00 here. (Northern MN).I'm sure a recite would have to be produced also for the processing.Living here in the great north, we have  alot of deer and the hunting is good. The average cost of processing a deer is $65.00 and then add the freezer paper cost,about  $3.50.If made into burger the cost of ground pork has to be included about $1.99 a lb here.We do process our own deer as we get alot more venison doing it ourselves. Seems like when we use to get it processed we got a small amount of venison back. It's terrible how people will steal from you.Venison is great and the biggest mistake people make when they cook it , is to over cook it.There is northing like a great Venison and wild rice hot dish.


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## pdswife (Dec 10, 2004)

DampCharcoal said:
			
		

> Pds, why couldn't he just tie the deer to the top of the car? That's what everyone else around here does if they don't have a truck!



     I'm sure he could have... but, he wanted that truck and well this was a good excuse.  lol.   We live in near Seattle Washington and I'm sure the "city folk" wouldn't like seeing Bambi tied to the roof of a passing car but, he could have done it.   Neither of us thought of that though.


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