Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting What's a Quartered Elk Weigh?

I've often wonder this myself. I've never weighed quarters when I got home, but wish I would have. On our opening week hunt, our guest hunter, Beau Baty, shot a bull. Given Beau weighs everything for llamas so that each side of the load is balanced to the pound, this seemed like a good time to film such. Thanks to Marcus (camera guy) for the idea and for filming it.

This was an average sized 4.5 year old (best estimate of age) bull, weighed with bone in. The elk I have shot in central and eastern MT have larger bodies than what I see in the mountains here in SW MT. Not sure if that is a result of higher quality forage in certain habitats or something else.

Interested what all you might have for weights on bulls you may have put on a scale.

skin off, bone in, quarters, neck, brisket, rib and loin on a 6x6 bull I killed this year weighed 278 lbs on a butchers scale.

So what do the Llama's weigh?

I know when I have to pack them out 4+ miles they weigh a ton! looking forward to the results.

When my uncle was still working for th wildlife department they had a check station for elk. Successful hunters were required to bring their elk in, quartered or whole, to be weighed and recorded. I don’t think they ever weighed a gutted bull that broke the #500 mark. Our elk here in OK are a little smaller than the ones we kill in CO but not a whole lot.

I always laugh when I hear about guys shooting “ 1000 pound” bull elk, always flatlanders of course. Or the guy I work with whose dad shot a middling sized 5by a couple years ago that weighed 1400, got 930 pounds of boned meat back from the locker. In the picture it sure looked like a regular old 450 pound dressed bull to me. Of course I’ve skinned, quartered, and butchered a couple dozen of them and not just one so what would I know.

hopefully I'll get to find out in a few weeks what a cow elk weighs. Love watching your videos Randy, had no idea you were on here. Your videos along with this site and rockslide have been a wealth of information for this newbie western hunter

I've weighed a pile of cows and young bulls boned out. Never had one break 200. Had an outfitter tell me the biggest bull they ever killed had 89lb hind quarters bone in. Most think they all weigh1k on the hoof.

The only one I ever weighed was a mature 6 point bull from the breaks. Bone in - hide on, the fronts were 60 each and the rears were 80 each. After skinning and deboning they lost ~ 20 lbs a piece.

I weighed the hinds of the 6x bulI got this year. 55 pound. Skinned. Although I took more than I usually off of the lower legs, but they would h not have added 10 pounds

Half a young bull carcass taken last year weighed 148 lb on the processors scale. No hide, head, innards, legs off, split right down the backbone from neck to tailbone. That would seem to fall in line with 500+/- dressed weight. My son shot a big 6x6 in 2007 and the processor estimated him to be 700-800 lb on the hoof. Can’t swear to that weight, but he dwarfed the 550-600 lb bull I shot the same evening. They are all bigger the further you have to drag them! That day we were lucky. All downhill, snow cover, only a few yards to a meadow, and lots of help getting both on a drag sled. Happy Trails

I have a PDF write up done by Wyoming University in 2003 that gives weights of elk from calves to ten year old,bulls and cows. Actual weights and how to figure live weights. Along with aging data. To large to post here and format changes when I try.

PM me with your email address and I will send it

My youngest cuts up wild game locally and the biggest elk this year was 475 pounds hanging, full carcus...He said the average runs 250-275 pounds, but that's not just the quarter,ofcourse...Hanging weight of the animal ready to be cut up...Total weight..

Or just link to the pdf. LINK

Along with all the other publications on wild game UW Extension has. http://www.uwyo.edu/foods/educational-resources/wild-game.html

Four quarters, two back straps, two tenderloins weighed 169 lbs. on the butcher's scale. That was a decent sized cow, bone-in, and skinned shot this rifle season.

I participated in the elk reduction effort in Teddy Roosevelt Nat'l Park in 2011. They took all cow elk that year and If I'm remembering correctly, the largest rear quarter was 71# bone-in off of a giant old grand-mammy.

That’s believeable.... I’ve killed and been around a lot of elk, people waaay overestimate them, like bear, fish, deer etc....

I just picked up the spike bull I shot last Thursday, and the wrapped meat weighed 180 lbs. Some of that weight was the beef tallow I had added to the burger. Subtract that (15 lbs) so the animal without any bones weighed 165lbs. Oh, I didn't subtract the paper and tape!

I am really glad I didn't have a shot at a bigger bull.

Ken

Haha lotsa folks are killlin elk sized deer perty regular... grin

You boys are shooting Roosevelt elk so they tend to run a little bigger than those rocky mtn elk we were shooting in eastern Oregon.

I've never weighed one either.....

I do know that when I drew a tag, the Alaska F&G sent me a letter stating that the Roosevelt bulls on Afognak and Raspberry Islands can weigh in excess of 1200-1300 pounds. I thought: "no way". I've killed lots of elk and even though Roosevelts are bigger, there's no way an elk can be that big.

Well when I got over to my bull, I scratched my head and said $hit.....I'll bet this thing weighs 1200-1300 pounds....
Each boned out quarter was substantially heavier than the bone in quarters of the Rocky Mountain raghorn I killed a couple weeks ago.