My buddy drew a coveted Michigan elk tag. It's a once on a lifetime opportunity. We had a blast! We hunted for 6 days through some of the toughest conditions (2 feet of snow, blizzard conditions, sub-zero windchills, whiteouts) I've hunted in. He scored a nice cow at 451 pounds that last day of our hunt. He's been my best friend for 30 years and I'll never forget the memories we made.
Anyway, due to time and lack of resources to handle a 450# completely frozen animal, he opted to take it to a processor. In return, he got 116# of meat or about a 1/4. That seemed light to both of us. We never weighed the elk we've shot in CO or WY, so we can't really correlate the yield. I always thought we got about a 1/3 back which should be around 150#. I'm curious as to what your experience has been regarding yields from your elk. Thanks!
I usually expect roughly 30% of live weight, but that depends on how much meat was damaged by bullets, how thoroughly the processor trims fascia and fat, how fat and healthy the individual animal is, etc.
I'd say his return was reasonable, especially if he shot up the front shoulders, the butcher did a really good job of trimming and cleaning up the meat, etc. The pickier you are with your meat processing, the less you end up with
