I agree with you there. I used to process 300 or so a year for folks that were either too lazy to do it, or too lazy to learn how.

If I kill one close to the time I am going to work it up, I don't gut it. I hang it by the back legs and skin it with the guts in. The guts all pretty much settle in the chest cavity and stay out of the way of the knife. I can still get to the inner loins without busting the gut since they have settled down toward the chest cavity.

Cool thread. I have always hung em by the back legs with a gambrel. But i got trained that way from growing up working in a slaughter house doing hogs and cows that way. I will see if i have a pic

Yup

Youre doing them upside down Texan lol

Although, with that said. I guess processors need to feed a family also and pay bills. So it’s a balance.

I have a few great friends that cut deer and other critters for a living. So don’t want to take business away from them. lol

But… it’s not hard… to do it yourself.

Used these to skin sows. Hang by hocks cut back legs off, skin around hams. Hook the chain around feet thru loop and hook to an eyelet bolted in cement floor and hit the chain hoist up. Pulls em off similar to ADCs coon rig i saw on here years ago

With the gutless method I used in the south, I hung them by the back legs. Then you don’t have to gut them.

Haven’t figured out how to make food out of the bones yet.

…. You can get the tenderloins out from the back … although usually gut in the government woods as I have to drag them a ways

I figured you ground them up to make bone meal for your garden Lugnut. lol

LOL

Gut in the field and take the heart to eat and the liver for bait. I've skinned backwards but prefer head down because that's the way we always did it. When I get the hide off what few hairs are left go poof with a quick pass of a butane torch.

Generally skin em where they lie. Start at the belly and skin just past the other side of the spine. Flip the hide out, take the rear, front, strap, then neck meat. Flip it over and repeat using the hide to keep the meat clean. Then put it on your back like god intended and hike it off the mountain.

Yup. Or out of the marsh.
Because we don’t have mountains. Lol

Hang em by the hind legs. Just how we’ve always done it for generations. That spot on a deer on his back legs where the skin gets thin and the tendon is thick just seems like it was made for hangin.

As your trimmin , toss the junk in the rib cage. I don’t use a saw just pop the joints and cut with a good knife, no bone dust. When your done you have the hide connected to the head and rib cage with all the trimmings/legs inside there, one trip to the dead pit. Works for me. Deer skin so easy I don’t see a need to hook em to a pickup to snatch the hide off .

I always skinned from the hind legs. Why that’s the way we did it on the slaughter house kill floor for everything else.

wws

Hang by the hind legs, my grandfather was a butcher for a living and that's the way he did it.
Guts stay in the woods, heart and liver come home.
Use to do 100 a year for Christmas money for the kids and wife.
Never saw a butcher hang one by the neck
As for skinnin', hide only takes a couple minutes on a cold deer and a little less on a warm one to skin.
As for leaving the guts in...I don't like cutting or quartering warm deer. I guess down south you don't have a choice without a cooler. And I like heart and liver

Back legs on a gambrel ... Easier to open them up for cooling, and if it's really warm, thoracic cavity holds a bag of ice wrapped in towels.

Skin them to get the meat out.
I've seen hogs butchered skin on.
Probably unacceptable internet practice today.
Shave n burn.