What's your normal take in lbs on a cow vs. bull over the years.

Just wondering if a guy can eat 2 elk a year.

Spot

Average bull maybe 160lbs. 3 of us can eat 2 elk 2 deer or 2 antelopes.

The average carcass weight(internals,hide,head,legs removed) of my elk has been between 300lbs and 400lbs with the largest 538lbs.The result will be around 200lbs to 300lbs of meat.

I take thats before you bone it out? I've cut up close to 100 elk and never got over 200 lbs for meat off one.

Sometimes my elk are fully boned out and sometimes the bones are left in the steak.But when the carcass weighs 400lbs,you should have well over 200lbs of edible meat.Of course I am including sausage meat as well as roasts and steaks.

Do you self a favor and have it all bone the meat will stay better longer also I think I'd find a new butcher I don't know what it cost to have an elk cut and rapped but I think some one could be over charging you.

I don't know about elk. but deer here you lose about 60%of a deer when boned out and fat trimmed off.

some butchers add any meat they have laying around to your package, that is why I now do my own, a friend of mine had balogna made from a deer (medium sized doe) got 150 lb of balogna. she diden't weigh that much on the hoof. now when he has a deer done up he thinks other butchers are cheating him out of his meat. that butcher was arrested for buying poached deer about a year later, he is still in business after paying a fine. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

There's a huge difference between big elk and little elk. Last season I took a small bull (fork on one side and a long spike on the other). I cut the backstrap, brisket and flanks in the field and too those directly home - probably 25 pounds or so. I took the quarter to the butcher and got back 165lbs of packaged meat.

That would result in 200lbs of meat from a 500lb elk,240lbs from a 600lb elk,280lbs from a 700lb elk,320lbs from an 800lb elk,and 360lbs from a 900lb elk.Coincidently that agrees very close with my numbers.By the way,the people that cut my elk put it on the scale when I bring it in so that customer can see the actual carcass weight before the cutting begins.As such ,they are not inflating the carcass weight in order to charge more.



That amounts to 190 pounds from a small bull.Then according to gotlost,you are being cheated by your butcher.

last three rosevelt bulls i cut up, no bones, where 2yr old spike 140lbs, 3 yr old raghorn, 181lbs, 5 yr old 5x5 221lbs no livers or hearts included. the largest elk i have ever cut up was 325lbs, a giant rosevelt cow about 10yrs old

I used to take my elk in whole, minus the tenderloin. Now I take as little bone in as possible. You get charged by the hanging weight that goes into the locker and I don't eat bones. Cut and wrap where I take it is about 50 cents a pound. I get a discount because I bring in really clean meat and it saves them time. The guy I take it to does a good job and only works on one animal at a time so you get your animal back and nothing else, and nothing missing. That's not always the case I hear but this guy is very honest and so he keeps my business.

The most I've taken in off of a decent sized 6x6 was 305 lb. That was minus the neck (left it in camp to bone it out) the spine and all of the ribs. The only bones were the leg bones in front and rear quarters. He was not an exceptionally large bodied elk and didn't go over 300 P&Y score. There are much larger elk around up there.

My last bull (an old 6x6) boned out at 263 lbs (no tenders, heart or liver). My last cow boned out to about 189 lbs. An elk lasts our family of four about a year, depending on how many geese we get donated every year. HTH, Dutch.

Got lost, if you have never gotten an elk over 3 years old, your under 200 lbs. of meat statement is correct. If you have killed elk over 3 years old, you are wasting a LOT of meat, or your butcher is. Stubble hit the elk weights right on the button for the age class of elk. Region and state don't make any difference in elk size. My results mirror his exactly. I too weigh my elk, it isn't guessing, like many on here do. I had a guy tell me last year that his Colorado bull was over 1,200 lbs. field dressed. I laughed and told him he was full of it. He said Colorado bulls are a LOT bigger than Utah and Wyoming bulls (yea right). I love the giant 6x6 1,200 lb. bull stories every year......right along with the 900 yard running shots. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ...oh and don't forget the guy on here that gets 200 lbs. of meat off of his deer every year. That one still cracks me up. Flinch

That varies a lot. On an Idaho trip several years ago, Me, my father and brother all got bulls. Mine was a 5x4 raghorn at 350ish. My father's 5x5 was 370ish. My younger brother's was a BIG 6x6 and his was just over 500lbs. Weights were with the quarters only - without hide, neck, head, horns, and hooves but included all the major bones. All weighed on the same scale at the butcher.

RH

i have never weighed a pile of bones, but from lifting them into the truck for disposal, i'll guess 70 to 90lbs on an average sized elk. then 30 or 40lbs of trimmings for the same elk so if an elk has 100lbs to 120lbs of waste after boning. hanging weight should be pretty easy to guess what the meat will weigh after boning.

I've only ever take 1 cow and didn't pay much attention to her weight. of the other 15+ bulls only 2 were 5 or older, I butcher all my game and I do use All eatable meat other than between the ribs. I pac it out boned and normally I'll do it in 2 trips by my self. now what some seem to think is that I can put a 130lbs+ pack on my back and hike 2 or 3 miles and make that trip 2 times in a day, I know me and that aint happening.
Also WG&F did a survey a # of years ago of game proceseor and they also came up with a number close to that ( Bill Gerhart is still there so you could call and ask him what # Harry really came up with).
Maybe thing just wiegh less here! it could be the allitude!
I don't like to BS people and think that when I give info it's has some merit to it.
You'll never see me tell someone what cal they have to shoot or what high dollar clothing is the best.
I may question some thing to help bring out good points just as others have done here but I try to keep it real.
I stick to my numbers.

The only logical explanation is that you shoot younger,smaller elk than everyone else.Those of us that shoot mature elk,get more meat.

That could be. but not all the other elk I've help with were 3 year old elk, it could be that I clean my burger to well a long with most of the people I know that do there own meat, It's hard to tell. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

well if you can't get 300lbs of boned meat out of the elk below,you are wasting far too much meat.



This was a 9 year old bull and the four quarters weighed 538lbs.

heres a 5 1/2 year old, he only about a 260 bull but I still didn't get over 200 lbs of meat of him.

there is no dought yours is a bigger body bull and rack. but I still cann't see 100 more lbs of meat. one thing 1 that could make a small diff is all most all the elk I deal with are post rut elk 15 Oct. or later

There are alot of variables in the equation of what you can take out, not to mention if your cutting meat off the bones in the field vs. a butcher doing it in his own environment on a table.

Spot

Just got back from coffie with one off the Biologist that did the G&F surey he said a BIG bull may 225 lbs of meat. As a side note the ave. Antelope buck hog dressed is 88 lbs with a meat return of 45%.

I've cut up a bunch of young bulls and cows to and I'd say that on average a 3.5-4.5 yo bull will net anywhere from 160-220 pounds of boneless meat, a mature cow will net between 130-180ish... There can be huge size ranges in these classes of animals, reguarless of age.

I cut meat commercially for two years, we could cut/wrap about 30 elk a day... and about 40 deer. It was not much fun however. LOL There was a lot of people would accuse us of stealing their meat too. In Mt you can't sell it so why would the butcher steal it? Why would a butcher want your nasty azz tenerloins you drug through the sage brush for 3 miles when they have beef to eat. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> anyway

Last year was the first time I've ever had an elk processed commercially. The hanging carcass (sans hide) with bone in was 375 pounds. I got back 225 pounds of boneless meat. I had the butcher include 10% suet into the burger but even then that only equates to 10-15 pound extra.

They chunked the neck meat for CWD concerns, apperently you don't have to keep it in CO and its not recomended??? anyway that would have probalby added about 40 more pounds to the carcass I'm guessing. He was not an old bull, probaly 4.5 yo or so,and had a slightly larger than average body to him.

To answer your question... My wife and I can barely eat one elk and a deer or two every year. On the down side.... I have two elk tags this year. A cow and a bull. So I'm going to shoot the smallest cow I see, and hold out for the biggest bull I see. I'm hoping that I don't ahve to get another freezer LOL

This is a typical mature bull in my neck of the woods.... and many will go over 600lbs on the rail (4 quarters hanging)....If my butcher only handed me back 200lbs of meat I'd ask him where the other half went <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

hey he asked and I gave good info if you don't like what I came up with fine, I realy don't care. I've got good data to support what I said if you don't believe it OK.

gotlost, my memory is as unfaithful as ever - my 5-pt bull was 124#, not 196 (although I could have done a better job on the neck meat).

Figure about 30-33% of live weight.

As stated, elk vary a great deal in size. 350 pounds for yearling cow, ~400 for a spike, 700 pounds for a "good" bull or boxcar cow and 900+ for a whopper.

I routinely weigh the boned meat and have had cows vary from 120 to 240 pounds. I've only killed one spike, everything else has been a 5 or 6. Except for the spike, the bulls have ranged from 180 to 280 pounds of boneless meat before processing.

My partner shot one that weighed in at an even 300 pounds when we boxed it up for travel and the airline scales verified it. Cost him a PILE to get that meat flown home. And yes, we subtracted the weight of the coolers to get to that 300 pound mark.

I agree with Flinch on all accounts -- 1200 pound dressed elk are laughable. At the same time, if you have 100 elk under your belt and have yet to recover 200+ pounds of meat??? Chances are, you leave a bunch in the field. I LOVE elk burger and it all grinds the same, so I take every ounce of meat I can get, including rib and neck meat.

How much would a big Roosey bull from the Oregon Coast dress out?

Alot of it is going to depend on the time of the year, that'll determine the body condition of said dead elk and therefore have a big effect on edible meat. There is a difference also in said dead elk spends the night munching away on farm crops, or whatever grass can be found in the quakies.
All that said Gotlosts figures are pretty close.
Some of the numbers you see for meat returned from game animals make me wonder what going on that we can't get beef carcasses to return such a high percentage? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Elk do vary in size between locations . A 3 -4 yur old bull in Alberta around Baniff will easily out weigh a 7 yr old bull in WY, ID or CO. The cows up there will out weigh the young bulls down here. This is strange because they all came out of the Yellowstone herd many yrs ago. I would go with the 225 lbs or so from an average cow and maybe 250 from an average bull. I probably get a little less now since I do the no gut method. If you process your own, you can always get more meat by leaving the bone in and picking the meat out when you eat it. I don't have space in my freezew=r for all the bone though.
BTW I did contact the CO DOW last year about leaving the neck in the field because of CW. They said no way. Lymph glands are way up past what anybody would cut into on the neck. You could be cited for waste of meat.

Biggest Bull I ever saw looked like a horse with horns. But that was the 1st of September, and he had not spent all his energy during the rut.

I guess he was between 800 -- 900 pounds on the hoof. He was tall, fat, and in prime condition.

By the time he was legal to hunt in November, he might have been under 700 pounds. According to Mule Deer, those big herd bulls don't eat much, if at all, for 6 to 8 weeks during the rut.

Assuming he was standing in a location where it was legal to hunt him, that I had a tag (bows only in September), and that I got him down, I expect he would have been 850 pounds on the hoof.

That roughly traslates to 340 pounds of meat and bones hanging on the hook at the butchers (head, hide, hoofs, and guts removed).

I usually lose about 30% more weight at the butchers (bones, damaged meat, etc.) That leaves 238 pounds of real meat to eat. And that's from the Biggest Roosevelt Bull, in full prime, that I have ever seen.

Just my 2 cents,

BMT

BMT good point about pre and post rut. A couple of seasons back my wife shot her bull the last day of the season, (10-31) , he carcassed just a bit over 300 lbs, that same age class bull (4yrs+) shot at the beginning of the season( 9-15)generally carcass at 4-450.