How To Butcher Deer (with Pictures) - WikiHow

Skip to ContentQuizzes

• PRO Courses Hot Guides Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade
• QUIZZES All Quizzes Hot Love Quizzes Personality Quizzes Trivia Quizzes Taylor Swift Quizzes
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help ProAbout UsRandom ArticleQuizzes Request a New ArticleCommunity DashboardTrendingForums Arts and EntertainmentArtworkBooksMoviesComputers and ElectronicsComputersPhone SkillsTechnology HacksHealthMen's HealthMental HealthWomen's HealthRelationshipsDatingLoveRelationship Issues Hobbies and CraftsCraftsDrawingGamesEducation & CommunicationCommunication SkillsPersonal DevelopmentStudyingPersonal Care and StyleFashionHair CarePersonal Hygiene Quizzes Love Quizzes Personality Quizzes Fun Games ForumsArts and EntertainmentFinance and BusinessHome and Garden Relationship QuizzesCars & Other VehiclesFood and EntertainingPersonal Care and Style Sports and FitnessComputers and ElectronicsHealthPets and Animals TravelEducation & CommunicationHobbies and CraftsPhilosophy and Religion Work WorldFamily LifeHolidays and TraditionsRelationships Youth
• LOG IN

  Log in

  Social login does not work in incognito and private browsers. Please log in with your username or email to continue. Facebook Google wikiHow Account No account yet? Create an account
• RANDOM

• Home
• Random
• Browse Articles
• TrendingNew
• Quizzes & Games
• All QuizzesHot
• Love Quizzes
• Personality Quizzes
• Fun Games
• Dating Simulator
• Learn Something New
• Forums
• Courses
• Happiness Hub
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow

• Log in / Sign up

Terms of Use wikiHow is where trusted research and expert knowledge come together. Learn why people trust wikiHow

• Categories
• Food and Entertaining
• Food Preparation
• Food Cutting Techniques

How to Butcher Deer Download Article Author Info

Last Updated: May 25, 2025 Approved

Download Article

• Skinning the Deer
|
• Aging the Meat
|
• Breaking Down the Deer
|
• Storing the Meat
|
• Video
|
• Q&A
|
• Tips
|
• Warnings
|
• Things You'll Need

|Show more |Show less X

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 12 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 86% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 308,921 times. Learn more...

Once a deer carcass has been field dressed and brought back to a lodge or house for further processing, the next step is learning to prepare chops, steaks, and roasts for nutritious meals to come. It can be overwhelming when you first look at all the work to be done, but once you break it down into a few simple tasks, you can do the work quickly and efficiently. Learn to remove the skin, age the meat properly, and prepare the most delicious cuts. See Step 1 for more information.

Steps

Part 1 Part 1 of 4:

Skinning the Deer

Download Article

1. 1 Field dress your deer as soon as possible. After you shoot a deer, it's OK to take a moment to congratulate yourself, but then you need to get working. All of the organs need to be removed to avoid tainting the meat and increasing spoilage. The quicker you get the animal field dressed and cleaned, the safer the meat will be.
   • Some people like to winch the carcass up to hang it by the antlers, while some prefer the feet when breaking down the carcass initially. Either works. If you want to save the antlers, you might hang the deer upside down and take special care in dealing with the skull.
2. 2 Remove each of the hooves at the elbow. With the point of your knife, find the joint and make an incision. Then, move your knife around the joint with the flat of the blade, cutting the ligaments and carefully working your knife around the elbow joint as deeply as possible. Twist the joint firmly and snap it off. Advertisement
3. 3 Begin cutting through the skin at the base of the animal's skull. Next, cut around it the base of the neck, then down towards the breastbone, and finally to the stomach, pelvis and the forelegs.
   • Take care to cut only the skin, and not the muscles or abdominal tissues, as hair will contaminate the meat in these areas.
4. 4 Begin pulling the skin off the shoulders and neck. Work your way downward toward the chest. If muscle tissue is pulling loose with the skin, scrape or slice through it so it doesn't tear loose as you go. Slicing the subcutaneous membranes will make the skin easier to pull free.
5. 5 Pull the skin off the carcass. If skinning by hand, pull the skin down a bit, as if you were peeling paper off a wall, then slice the tissue that attaches it to the muscles underneath it, working a little at a time.
   • If you want to save energy and use a four wheeler or even a truck, you can tie a golf ball or a similarly sized stone under the skin, looping your rope around it, then tie the free end to the vehicle. Drive slowly away from the carcass, pulling the remaining skin from the deer with very little effort.
6. 6 Remove the head. Take the deer down and lay it out on a flat work surface. Just under the jaw, cut the ligaments to loosen the connective tissue around the neck. You'll need to twist the head sharply to break the neck and remove the head completely.
   • If you want to save the antlers, but not the head, you'll need to use a saw to remove a portion of skull about an inch from the base of the antlers.
   • If you want to save the entire head, keep it cool and skin it. Save any meat from the skull you wish to keep and boil the skull for several hours, removing the tissue and bleaching the skull. Clean it afterward with hydrogen peroxide to get it white.
7. 7 Rinse the deer's carcass after the skin is removed. This will wash away any hair that has stuck to the meat and will also help cool the meat while you are completing the job. If you plan to have your deer commercially processed, it's ready to go to the processor after removing the organs. If you want to break it down yourself, let it cool thoroughly and take it indoors or to a clean cutting surface on which you can work.
Advertisement

Part 2 Part 2 of 4:

Aging the Meat

Download Article

1. 1 Wash the venison with plenty of cold water, then transport it with ice. Do not wrap it with cling wrap or butcher paper at this point, which will trap heat in the meat and promote spoilage. Make sure the carcass is cool and dry. As soon as possible, the meat needs to be transported and stored at 34–38 °F (1–3 °C).
   • Avoid freezing the meat right away, as freezing will inhibit the aging process and speed its spoiling after the meat is thawed.
2. 2 Find a suitable location for aging. The most difficult part of the process is finding a space big enough for your deer that can be temperature controlled. The most popular location is generally a garage, shed, or an outbuilding. Places that receive some heat seepage from the house, like a garage, tend to be particularly effective.
   • If you don't have a garage, talk to friends and other hunting acquaintances to find a suitable location. Or follow the first few steps of the breaking down process to quarter the meat and age it in a spare refrigerator. The quarters from an average deer should fit in a standard fridge.
   • Err on the side of too cold. Generally, you'll freeze at least some of the meat after breaking it down anyway. Be very careful not do let your venison spoil by aging it above 40 °F (4 °C). Make sure to keep a thermometer in your aging space.
3. 3 Hang the carcass. Use a meat hook and chain or rope to affix the meat to a sturdy rafter in your aging location.
   • If you don't have a meat hook, try using an old wire hanger inside the carcass to hang the deer.
4. 4 Age the meat for at least a week. Like beef, aging the meat causes the collagen in the muscle cells to break down. The quality and flavor of the venison is greatly improved by letting the meat sit for a week in a cool space with good air circulation.
   • This causes the surface of the meat to dry, but don't worry--this can be trimmed off during the butchering process.
   • The meat will continue to grow more tender for 16-21 days.
Advertisement

Part 3 Part 3 of 4:

Breaking Down the Deer

Download Article

1. 1 Prepare a clean work surface and assemble your tools. It's helpful to have a large cleaver and a boning knife for this task. Make sure your tools are sharp and clean and that you've got a sterile work surface large enough to handle big pieces of meat.[1]
   • Try setting up a portable card table or picnic table and cleaning it with food-safe sanitizer before you begin.
2. 2 Split the backbone in half. To separate the chuck meat (front quarters) from the round (hind quarters), use a saw or a meat cleaver and find the point at which the rib cage meets the backbone (it should be between the 12th and 13th rib). Cut through the spine using firm pressure with the cleaver.
   • After you've made an incision, you may need to put one hand on the hind quarters and one hand on the for legs or neck area and bend them toward each other to break the back in half.
3. 3 Remove the backstraps and tenderloins. Probably the most tender and tasty cut of venison, the tenderloins are the dark, lean, red meat found inside the cavity, running alongside the backbone. The backstraps or ribeye are also called the "outside tenderloins," and are found opposite the tenderloin, along the backbone on the other side of the ribs.
   • To remove them, run your knife along the inside of the backbone (for the tenderloin) or the outside of the backbone (for the backstraps), and work the meat loose of the ribs and keeping the edge of your knife as close as possible to the bone, to get as much of the meat as possible. Use long even cuts as you pull the meat away from the bone.
   • You'll find these in both the hind quarters and rib section of the carcass. This is the best cut for steaks or roasts.
4. 4 Saw through the ribs near the spine. Cutting them all the way down the backbone, you can either separate the ribs, or leave them intact as whole side of ribs. The brisket can be found on the outside of the ribs, near where you've opened the belly for removing the organs.
   • Alternatively, you can leave the entire backbone area intact for cutting into chops with a meat saw later. To do this, leave the tenderloins and backstraps in place, and remove the upper shoulders by cutting the muscles that attach them to the chest, working from the bottom (the armpit) up, lifting on the leg as you do so. Since there are not joints in the bones connecting the front shoulders to the chest, a good, sharp knife is all you will need.
5. 5 Remove the shoulder and neck meat. Many people do not realize how much meat a deer's neck has in it. This meat isn't as good for steaks, but is ideal for grinding into sausage or cubing for stew meat. Work your knife around the shoulder joint, twisting the arm away from the body as you loosen it.
6. 6 Separate the hams from the hock joints. The hams of the deer are the fatty meat found around the back hips or the rump of the deer, and the hocks are the remaining leg meat above the joint where you removed the hooves. Hams make decent steaks and hocks are good for stewing.
   • If you want to leave the bone in, cut the hindquarters from the deer by sawing through the pelvic bone on either side of the spine, then separate the ham from the hock by cutting through the joint.
   • If you want to remove the hams from the bone completely, work the hind legs off the hip by working your knife into the ball and socket joint, lifting the leg away from the carcass as you work. Next, position the ham at a perpendicular angel and about 1⁄2 inch (1.3 cm) from the top, perpendicular to the leg bone, and cut straight down through the ham. Cut the meat from the leg bone by shifting your knife parallel to the bone. You can immediately cut this meat into steaks or leave it whole for stewing or roasts.
7. 7 Prepare steaks and chops as you work. It's usually more effective to cut the meat into the cuts you'll want to eat before you freeze the meat. That way, you'll be able to defrost a little at a time, rather than having to worry about defrosting a whole side of ribs that will be difficult to use all at once.
   • Use the lower half of the hams for stews and pot roasts.
   • Cut round steaks from the top half of the hams.
   • Leave the backstraps as long tenderloin cuts or consider cutting into loin chops.
   • Cut chunks of soup meat form the lower ribs, belly meat, and the neck meat. If you've got a meat grinder, this also makes excellent ground venison or venison sausage.
   • Use the front legs for pot roast or consider cutting into chops if you like.
Advertisement

Part 4 Part 4 of 4:

Storing the Meat

Download Article

1. 1 Prepare it for freezing. With a very sharp boning knife, remove fat, cartilage, and any bruising, discoloration and dry spots that result from the aging process. Much of the toughness or undesirable gaminess negatively associated with venison can be lessened by removing these parts.
2. 2 Freeze the meat. In labeled meal-sized portions, pack the meat into plastic freezer bags. Squeeze as much of the air as possible out of the bags and that the bags are sealed tightly before placing them in the freezer.
   • Don't forget to date the meat. Meat prepared this way should remain good for at least a year. Ground venison and sausage might lose their flavor more quickly. For the best quality, try to use the ground meats first.
3. 3 Consider curing or smoking some of your venison. If you want to prepare and keep some of your meat without freezing it and you have the equipment to smoke meat, venison makes for great cured summer sausage.
   • You can use a corning brine to create your own venison version of corned beef.
4. 4 Make venison jerky. One of the most popular preparations among hunters, venison jerky is a chewy and delicious way of preparing venison and keeping it for a long time on the shelf. Use a commercial food dehydrator to remove the moisture from the meat, flavoring it to your taste.
Advertisement

Community Q&A

Search Add New Question

• Question When cutting steaks, do I cut with the grain or against the grain? Community Answer You cut with the grain to remove the muscle from the carcass of the deer and cut against the grain to cut individual steaks. Thanks! We're glad this was helpful. Thank you for your feedback. If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow Yes No Not Helpful 1 Helpful 9
• Question Is the flank meat generally suitable to be used for grinding, or is it to be discarded? Community Answer I grind it, unless it has too much connective tissue in it; this plugs the grinder. Thanks! We're glad this was helpful. Thank you for your feedback. If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow Yes No Not Helpful 0 Helpful 6

Ask a Question 200 characters left Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Submit Advertisement

Video

Tips

• Check to make sure the Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is not in the area the deer was harvested. Thanks Helpful 27 Not Helpful 24

Submit a Tip All tip submissions are carefully reviewed before being published Name Please provide your name and last initial Submit Thanks for submitting a tip for review! Advertisement

Warnings

• Do not cut the scent glands from the deer's legs, as this will contaminate the meat. Thanks Helpful 43 Not Helpful 72

Advertisement

Things You'll Need

• Place to hang the deer carcass
• Rubber gloves
• Circular saw
• Sharp knife
• Hacksaw or bone saw
• Butcher paper
• Pen

You Might Also Like

A Complete Guide to Dressing a Deer How to Skin a Deer: Step-by-Step Instructions & Pictures How toField Dress a Deer How toClean a Deer How toCook Venison (Deer Meat) How toButcher Cattle How toClean a Squirrel How toGut a Pig How toField Dress a Rabbit How toSkin a Dead Animal How toFillet a Fish How toField Dress a Duck How to Gut, Skin, and Wash a Turkey How toSkin and Gut a Rabbit Advertisement

References

1. ↑ http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/portals/wildlife/pdfs/publications/hunting/pub111.pdf

About This Article

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 12 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 308,921 times. 21 votes - 86% Co-authors: 12 Updated: May 25, 2025 Views: 308,921 Categories: Food Cutting Techniques Article SummaryX

To butcher deer, start by skinning the deer, and removing the hooves and organs with a knife. Next, wash the meat in cold water before hanging the deer from a meat hook in a garage or outbuilding to age for a week. Once the meat is aged, lay out the carcass on a flat surface and cut through the backbone where it meets the ribs with a saw. You should also remove the cuts of meat from the hind quarters, neck, and shoulders. Finally, cut the meat into the cuts you want to eat before freezing it. For tips on how to store deer meat, read on! Did this summary help you?YesNo

In other languages Italian French Russian Japanese

• Print
• Send fan mail to authors

Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 308,921 times.

Reader Success Stories

• 

  John Beason

  Nov 26, 2016

  "Never butchered a deer before and a buddy shot one for me. So I was curious on how to prepare the meat. He told me..." more

More reader stories Hide reader stories Share your story

Did this article help you?

Yes No Advertisement Cookies make wikiHow better. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy.

About This Article

Co-authors: 12 Updated: May 25, 2025 Views: 308,921 86% of readers found this article helpful. 21 votes - 86% Click a star to add your vote

John Beason

Nov 26, 2016

"Never butchered a deer before and a buddy shot one for me. So I was curious on how to prepare the meat. He told me..." more

Jackie Bishop

Dec 19, 2016

"I enjoyed your video immensely and learned quite a few things from it, thank you for taking the time to do your..." more

Ted Schweikert

Oct 21, 2017

"I used to butcher goats, but it has been too long ago. This article refreshed the techniques. Thank you." Rated this article:

Edward Weston

Apr 21, 2017

"When the power grid goes down, I'll have some idea on how to butcher some deer for food. " Rated this article:

Barry Forsythe

Dec 2, 2016

"Did not know deer meat is better with age. Thanks." Share yours! More success stories Hide success stories

Quizzes & Games

How Good Are My Survival Instincts QuizTake QuizFinish the Phrase QuizTake QuizWhen Will I Die QuizTake QuizWhat Age Is My Brain QuizTake QuizWould I Survive a Horror Movie QuizTake QuizHow Will I Die QuizTake Quiz

You Might Also Like

A Complete Guide to Dressing a DeerHow to Skin a Deer: Step-by-Step Instructions & PicturesHow toField Dress a DeerHow toClean a Deer

Featured Articles

How toRemove Shorts from Search Results on YouTubeWhat Are the Korean Animal Face Types? (And Which Type Do You Have?)Being the Little Spoon While Cuddling: Is It Better Than the Big Spoon?115+ Funny “Get Well Soon” Messages to Make Someone Laugh110+ “Fun Facts” for Interviews, Introductions, & IcebreakersHow Long Would You Survive In A Zombie Apocalypse?

Trending Articles

What's My Soulmate's Name QuizPurity TestWhich Fictional Character Would Crush On You?Crush Calculator: Does Your Crush Like You Back?Rate My Personality QuizWhat's My Personality Based on My Song Choices Quiz

Featured Articles

How to Roast Someone in a Rap Battle (Plus the Best Bars of All Time)What Turns a Girl On? 31 Things to Try on Your PartnerLove AnalyzerSending Your Sweetie a Love Note? Here are 200+ Romantic IdeasHow toExercise Your BrainHow toBe a Fun Person to Hang out With

Featured Articles

What Does Your Morning Routine Say About You?How toDevelop Productive HabitsHow toPractice Self CareWhat Song Matches Your Life Right Now?Will 2026 Be Your Year? Reveal Your FutureUnderstanding the Most Attractive Face Shapes (& Determining Your Own)

Watch Articles

How toIron PantsHow toCut LimesHow to Make Your Own Comforting Cinnamon TeaHow toDraw 3D ShapesHow toMake a Sugar ScrubHow to Wear a Scarf: 19 Different Styles

Trending Articles

Am I a Good Kisser QuizMy Lookalike GeneratorHow Tall Will I Be QuizIf I Had A Baby, What Would It Look Like?How toLose Weight FastHow to Tell if a Guy Likes You

Quizzes & Games

Am I Smart QuizTake QuizWhat Tarot Card Am I QuizTake QuizAnimal Riddle QuizTake QuizCollege Grad Intelligence Test: Can You Score An A+?Take QuizWhat's the Best Meal Kit for Me QuizTake QuizBible Trivia QuizTake Quiz

• Categories
• Food and Entertaining
• Food Preparation
• Food Cutting Techniques

wikiHow Newsletter You're all set! Helpful how-tos delivered toyour inbox every week! Sign me up! By signing up you are agreeing to receive emails according to our privacy policy.

• Home
• About wikiHow
• Experts
• Jobs
• Contact Us
• Site Map
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info
• Contribute

Follow Us

×

wikiHow Tech Help Pro:

Develop the tech skills you need for work and life

Let's do this! X --652