Quote:
Originally Posted by smith88
I did some looking on the internet. The University of Wyoming did a study and they found that an elk give 50% of the field dressed weight back in boneless meat. Field dressed weight is gutted and legs removed but with head and skin on. They found head and skin weighs 73lbs. So 73lbs + 168lbs (boneless meat from a 2.5 year old elk) = 241lbs so that leaves 94lbs for the skeleton because they found a 2.5 year old bull is 337lbs average.
So my elk weighed 323lbs on the with no head or skin. So according to this study there should have been 239lbs of boneless meat. I received half of that.
http://www.wyomingextension.org/agpubs/pubs/B594R.pdf |
The study does not show that you should have received 239 pounds of meat.
Your document claims 50% of skinned carcass weight in the University setting, 43% from butcher documents.
The discrepancy is probably due to extra care taken by the university and the reality of averages and the realities of butchers.
At 323 rail weight, you probably should have received somewhere between 130-160 pounds of meat.
So you seem to be just low of low side of the average return, but not by much.
where did it go?
Neck shots can easily lose more meat than a clean rib shot.
Some animals, especially younger ones, are just boney.
Lots of boney teenagers out there.
The butcher may have been a bit aggressive in trimming.
I think you are dealing maybe 10-20 pounds of unaccounted meat.
I would not lose any more energy over it and learn to butcher.
In a few years, you will be happy this experience gave you the kick to do it yourself.