CWD is a couple counties away and who knows might actually be here by now. This has changed the way I process my deer. Since bones are one thing they don't want moving out of the cwd area and are not allowed to bring into the state I try not to mess with the bones anymore. No more ribs or neck roast. Wont touch one with a saw anymore. Just bone everything out. May not make a bit of difference but I guess it doesn't hurt anything and besides I don't really miss scrapping the tallow off the roof of my mouth after eating deer ribs.

There are few parts of a deer that I enjoy more than a neck roast slow cooked in a crock pot.
I do not mess with the meat between the ribs of our small Virginia deer. Not enough there to feed a sick cat. The meat which lies on top of the ribs (flank meat I guess) goes into the jerky sack.
Front quarters are cut in two at the shoulder joint and the halves go in the crock pot sack. (This is as good as the neck roast!)
Hock meat goes in the jerky shack.
Hind quarters are deboned while hanging.
Only thing left for the vermin is the innards, and maybe the rib meat left over from the sick cat.

J.,

It is entirely possible to be a curmudgeon and be correct at the same time.

At least according to my wife anyway.

Mike

37 pounds, you've got to be kidding me! I get 45-60 pounds of boned out meat out of our little blacktails, I once got 93 pounds off a huge one.
There is no reason to leave rib, neck or any other meat; have you ever heard of burger or stew meat?
The most common thing out of state hunters are ticketed for in Alaska is wanton waste of game. You can't believe the number of times the statement is made "back where I come from we never save rib meat", that statement just digs the hole deeper since it shows they never read the game regs.
Sorry to rip on you (well not really), but you should know better.