Bringing home the meat

Share your tales (tall or otherwise) of hunting adventures.

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dryfly
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Bringing home the meat

Post by dryfly »

Will be hunting Bison soon, chance for two cows and one smaller bull. As of now I have three 120 Qt. coolers. I have only transported deer. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Marathonman
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by Marathonman »

Meat spoilage is what can happen even in sub-freezing temperatures. I shot a cow elk at last light one December and didn't recover her until the following day. I had to use a screw driver to skin her but still lost a lot of meat to bone sour in the hind quarters. My advice is to get the animal skinned and into a meat locker as soon as you can. After it's had time to cool properly you will have more time to transport. If for some reason you can't do that then skin and quarter quickly and use your knife to open up the hip joint. Think cool down.....
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Dakota Dick
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by Dakota Dick »

Double Ditto on what Marathonman said.
Best to get it to a processor quickly and let him at the very least quarter and cool it over night if you plan to haul it home to your own processor.
Best solution is to let the local processor in you hunting area process it. With advanced arrangement that can be accomplished in two days and you take home boneless packaged hard frozen meat...a couple of chucks of dry ice and you will be good for a couple of days if it is a long haul.
A bision is not something you even want to think about processing yourself unless you have the equipment and a large cold storage area.
Just my 2 cents based on having taken 3 bison with different outfits in three different states....both long and short hauls home.
Dick Savage
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Dakota Dick
Keystone, SD
dryfly
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by dryfly »

Thank you for your help. I am also curiuos as to amount of container space needed.
Dakota Dick
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by Dakota Dick »

I built a meat box out of 1/2" ply and lined it top, bottom and sides with 2" styrafoam.
Exterior measurements are 48"x22"x22" and interior measurements are 43"x17"x17"
That figures out to 7.056 cubic feet of cold storage space and filled to the brim that will hold 260-280lbs of processed frozen bonless packaged meat.
The average 1 1/2 year old bull bison will render 220lbs + 30lbs of packaged boneless meat. Figure another 200lbs for a 2 1/2 yr old.
Dick Savage
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Dakota Dick
Keystone, SD
rdnck
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by rdnck »

I have a 21 cu. ft. freezer and one that is 7 1/2 cu. ft. A 3 year old bull and a 2 year old cow, processed, wrapped, and frozen will fill both of these to the very top, and then some. I still had to give some meat away after buying the smaller freezer.

You don't have nearly enough container space with your ice chests. My experience mirrors that of Dakota Dick. You are way ahead of the game to get your meat processed and frozen locally as it makes transport and storage a lot easier. Shoot straight, rdnck.
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Kurt
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by Kurt »

I always carry a 22 qft chest freezer in the back of my truck when I hunt out of state and hook it up to a generator to transport meat home. That is big enough to put in two Deer quartered or a Elk, maybe a two year old meat Bull quartered might fit in if you want to process it your self. You might have to bone some out to get it all in.
Last fall I shot a Bison the freezer did not cool and the 12 hour trip home was long enough to to have the frozen packaged meat starting to get soft.
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Dakota Dick
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by Dakota Dick »

I have given serious consideration to hauling my freezer and generator on any buff hunt that is going to be more than 12 hours from home.
As Kurt noted, I have seen more than a few folks over the years haul a freezer and generator to camp in the back of their truck to get the meat home. Especially in elk camp where some folks came from 3 or more states away. Several had a folding table, set up a processing line and cut, wrapped and toss it right in the freezer before they left camp...but that was elk and deer...nothing the size of a 1 1/2 to 2yr old buff. Sure enough those cows will not be the mass of a bull, but if you are talking a 3-4yr old cow, you are talking around 300lbs of packaged boneless meat and that means 400-450 lb of hanging sides and a 900 to 1200lb live weight animal.
Haul a freezer and generator...or build a meat box AND take your coolers and pick up some dry ice along the way if it is a long haul (over 10 hours). Enjoy an extra day exploring the area and let a local processor handle it for you. Heck, I even know of some fellows that made a meat box by taking a couple of rolls of duct tape and precut 2" styrofoam (high density stuff you can get in 4x8 sheets at Menards, Home Depot or such) and made the meat boxes in the bed of their P/Us held together with duct tape...worked great for their purpose and got the frozen meat home in great shape...gave the foam to a local builder when they got home who used it for exterior insulation of poured foundation walls.
Dick Savage
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Keystone, SD
Brent
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by Brent »

If you do the freezer thing, fill it with a bunch of dry ice before you start. Helping it get started cooling a few hundred pounds of warm meat would be a good idea.

The Pickup Cooler, as we do it, is the following

1. 2" foamboard on the floor of the bed.
2. A large tarp more than 2x bigger than the bed, laid so that half hangs out over the side.
3. Meat, preferably boned out in meat bags
4, the other half of the tarp
5. Ice - lots of it.
6. another smaller tarp that covers the bed
7. Every sleeping bag, jacket, vest, etc that you have.

Then drive like hell. This has gotten us from NW New Mexico to central Iowa with an overnight in between, carrying two bull elk.

This time we used a meat locker in Duboise. Cheaper and easier, and a lot less volume to transport. Of course, we only had 4 antelope.
Just straddling the hard line between "the arrogance of dogmatism and the despair of skepticism"
The Horseman
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by The Horseman »

I agree with Dakato Dick, let the local meat locker process the animal and freeze the meat overnight. My father and I built a cooler with 2 inch insulation and duct tape. We left Hamilton, MT and drove to Glendive, MT and stayed the night at a motel. The next day we completed the trek home, another 12 hours. The cooler held one elk and two deer.

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We also used this same method to transport four bison home. Again, we had a local meat locker process the meat and freeze the meat. The travel time was only five hours. Both times, the meat was still frozen solid. The coolers were full of meat and were close to air tight. Each box held 2 two and half year old bison.


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dryfly
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by dryfly »

Gentlemen, thank you for your replys. It has been most helpful. I will get any meat frozen and put in coolers. John
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Re: Bringing home the meat

Post by Brent »

dryfly wrote:Gentlemen, thank you for your replys. It has been most helpful. I will get any meat frozen and put in coolers. John
A word of warning. It is often VERY hard to get a meat locker to freeze meat for you if you have already done the butchering. I'm not one to let others butcher my animals so I have to hunt and peck, and bribe and cajole various owners for freezer time. Freezer space is in big demand and the local locker typically reserve it for full-service customers first (and usually last). So, make plans ahead, think of unique bribes, or have a back-up plan ready to go.
Just straddling the hard line between "the arrogance of dogmatism and the despair of skepticism"
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