Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting How much meat yield from an elk?

Pharmseller,

Maybe I'm sick, but those photos make a fun sequence for me.

I'll probably get yelled at again, but my elk yielded 241 pounds in various cuts, including LOTS of ground..

That weight makes more sense to me. 240 divided by .25 equals 960 pounds. I just had a large 5 or smallish but very wide 6 point in the hedgerow this morning. My wife ( she is an excellent stockperson) agrees with me that pot licker weighed closer to nine hundred than 500 live weight.

And Pharmseller if you cooked down that cleaned neck I bet beer to spuds you could get a gallon or two of stew made.

I'll bet, but I wasn't about to carry it four miles to the trailhead.




P

If one divides 240 by .36 your elk would have weighed 667 pounds live weight.

If one divides 240 by .36 your elk would have weighed 667 pounds live weight.

And that is about right.

This is the best guide to what to expect in the way of meat yield that I have seen. And based on my personal experience I think it's accurate.

http://www.wyomingextension.org/agpubs/pubs/B594R.pdf

Today I remember a cow I got to the processor with the skin, head and legs on it. It weighed 390 pounds. But I don't remember how much meat I got from that one.

That is pretty close and they even say that you may be 17-18 pounds lighter without the flank, brisket etc., which would be more like a field processed elk-like mine.

Subtract that weight and the numbers are pretty close to what mine have been over the years.

MDNR biologists told us in a mandatory class we had to take before getting the tag, that Michigan elk are, on average, quite a bit bigger than their Rocky Mtn. brethren. This is due to the fact that they are basically flatlanders eating agricultural crops for most of their lives. Their muscles aren't as lean as those at elevation out west. They simply eat and don't move as much or as strenuously.

Every one of the elk shot in the Michigan hunt must be checked in, aged, and weighed as they have for the past 30 years. heads must be submitted for CWD check. As you can see in the previous photo, that cow was 451 pounds gutted. Mine in '98 was 430 pounds gutted. gutted is hanging weight without the guts, but with everything else attached.

I agree with your assessment that a 450 pound gutted elk should yield more meat than .25. I apologize for causing any confusion.

I've cut up about 25 cow elk and around 15 bulls in the last dozen years or so. I'm pretty particular about my meat and trim way more than a butcher so my yields are lower but this is about what I've seen for yields.

Cows 100-150lbs A yearling cow shot in August would be at the lower end of that and a old cow shot in November or December seems to be at the upper end.

Small bulls 175-200lbs

Big bulls can be 250+lbs

One of the bulls I shot this year was the biggest elk I've been next to. The neck muscles were massive. We boned out the front shoulders, the back straps, and the neck meat all in separate bags. There was less than 5lb difference in weight between the bags. Obviously I can't weigh them now but I'd have made a pretty sizable wager the neck meat was over 30lbs. The chunks from each side were as heavy as the back straps. When someone says 5-7lbs of neck meat from the usual elk I would say they are damn close to the average. This was no average elk though.

I would say the yield from that elk, which was pretty heavy already gutted, should have been at least 30+lbs more considering he most likely added beef or pork fat to get to the 116lbs. His yield should have been at least 1/3 of the gutted weight IMO. Elk do vary a lot in body composition and the time of year but a 500+lb live weight cow is pretty big. I wouldn't be surprised to see 150-175lbs of meat come off that elk because it's pushing the size of many raghorn bulls around here.

Anyone have an idea what percentage of the total weight the boned quarters turn out to be?


Okie John

It's a variable. If you neck shot an elk your yield would be much higher than if you shoulder shot one. 25% +/- of live weight will get you in the hunt.

This may not help the OP answer his question ... but my wife and I just finished butchering this elk. For the area I usually hunt in I considered it to be slightly larger than average. We let it hang a week and then spent three days working on the processing ... a little at a time. The end result was exactly 150 pounds of packaged, boneless meat. We added nothing to the grind.

Our final tally was 61 pounds of roasts, 71 pounds of grind meat and 18 pounds of steaks.

This cow was shot once through the ribs just above the heart with a 300 Win Mag using 180 gr. Nosler Partitions. There was minimal damage to the meat, perhaps a couple of handfuls of thin rib flesh that was bloodshot. We discarded a little over a 5-gal bucket of silverskin, fat, connective tissue and tendons. There was some rind trimmed off too, mostly on the shanks.

My last 5X5 yeilded 210 lbs. of boneless meat with no fat added.

Owned a couple processing plants and worked in several others , when you bring something in with the legs, hide head,usually gutted poorly full of dirt, bloodshot meat. "you just what you get" !!!!!!!!!!