I refuse to pay for a butcher to cut up a small deer. Its so simple to do yourself and I know exactly what I am getting back in return. We use just about every part of the animal. Good cuts go to roasts and steaks. Grind goes to burger (+ 25% bacon ends/ peices or beef suet - whatever). Liver and kidneys goes to Liverwurst. Cull fat for wrapping meatballs. Bones for stock. Scraps for homemade dogfood. The tail gets cut off, salted and saved for fly tying. Only the head, forearms and hide gets tossed. I've even thought to cut out the hooves for dog chews - but that is a super pain in the butt. I may build a hide scrape and drying rack for next year and brain tan my own hide (another pain in the butt). No butcher would take the time or care to do the job we do. It's important to us that the animal is fully utilized to our best abilities.

We are both softies when it comes to taking an animal's life. There is no cheering and high fives. It's very quiet and we say our peace to the animal in our own ways. I've been known to slip a last bite of grass in an animals mouth as a final meal (old world European style "contribution". I'm Prussian German and that's how Gramps taught us). I'd be damned to go through all of that and let a butcher rip the deer and me off. The deer deserves better. My dogs certainly thank us for the tasty meals.

Homemade Dogfood recipe: Take all scraps, fat and silver and course grind. One BT deer may give roughly 30 lbs of scrap meat. Brown grind without any seasonings of any kind (not even S&P). Cook lots of brown rice in rice cooker. Boil several bags of frozen peas and carrots. Once peas and carrots are boiled, drain well and mix with brown meat and finish cooking. Cool everything once cooked and mix 50% meat, peas and carrots and 50% brown rice in bowl. Pack tight into quart canning jars, lid and freeze. One deer makes about 50 quarts of dogfood. I then mix 50% homemade with 50% dry food. My dogs go ape chit for it.