Deer hunting is a lot of work early in the season. You have to get your property ready, whether that means planting food plots or clearing a trail. Then you have to pick the right stand location, work your trail cameras, and sit in your tree stand for dozens of hours, hoping to get a shot off. Then you have to make a deadly shot! Once you manage to do all of that successfully, the real work begins, processing your deer.
Now that you have your deer on the ground, you want to know just how much meat you will be putting on the table. That is pretty tough to eyeball before you go through the whole process, so I made a super fast and easy calculator for you.
The calculation I used was not made up or based purely on personal experience. I studied multiple reports and studies from trusted biologists and industry leaders to find the most accurate numbers I could. Although in the end, this calculator is still an approximation. Try it out yourself!
One of the most important parts of this calculator is your field-dressed weight. It is extremely important that you have a fairly accurate weight for your deer and aren’t just eyeballing it. If you don’t already have one, I suggest getting a scale. I use this one from Sportsmans Warehouse. It is less than $50 and has done well for me for three seasons so far.
Omega Outdoors Meat Yield Calculator
Input your deer’s field-dressed weight and experience level as a butcher and instantly get your expected meat yield!
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How I Calculated Meat Yield
For starters, we will be working off of field-dressed/gutted deer weight. That is the most accurate method I could find. The internal organs of a deer can weigh different amounts based on its diet or how long it has been since it ate or defecated. The best option is to remove all that variation and base the calculation on the dressed weight.
Your experience also has a lot to do with how much meat you will end up with. An inexperienced butcher will likely leave behind more meat than a professional, so I added another variable to this equation to account for this.
This is not something I see others paying attention to. Most other articles simply assume the reader is an expert or highly experienced. I wouldn’t even consider myself an expert butcher, so hopefully, this added functionality gives you a more accurate estimate.
If you go looking online, you will find plenty of people throwing out all kinds of numbers for how much meat is on a deer relative to its dressed weight. So I stuck to reliable sources. Wildlife Biologist & Deer Manager Grant Woods says that a deer will yield around 40% of its dress weight in edible meat. Deer & Deer Hunting Editor-in-Chief Dan Schmidt estimates a realistic meat yield for a whitetail to be around 35% of its dressed weight for the average hunter.
Lastly, a 2017 study that the Ohio DNR did on 115 deer found that the average meat yield for a whitetail deer was 48.5% of their field-dressed weight with an expert butcher. The average for these three estimates comes out to 41.16%
I stuck my yield percentage on the conservative side at 42.5%. That’s because I will also knock a little off based on your experience as a butcher.
For an expert butcher, I expect them to yield about 97% of the available meat. An experienced hunter/butcher should get around 92%, and I expect a butcher with intermediate experience should get an 88% meat yield. Lastly, I expect a complete beginner to yield around 84% of the available meat.
If you take the butcher experience levels mentioned previously and multiply them by the general 42.5% yield, you will get the following meat yields in this table.
| Butcher Experience Level | Estimated Meat Yield |
|---|---|
| Beginner | 36% |
| Intermediate | 37% |
| Experienced | 39% |
| Expert | 41% |
As I mentioned before, most articles or studies estimating or calculating meat yield either use expert butchers or assume the reader is one. If you notice, my expert butcher meat yield is the same as the average for the three sources I cited. This shows that those studies are not necessarily accurate for the average hunter who is also an average butcher.
How to Get as Much Meat as Possible
If you aren’t the best butcher in the world yet, that’s okay. There is a lot to learn. The first step is using a sharp knife and trying your best not to leave too much meat behind when deboning your deer. You also want to make calculated cuts and not just cut up meat as fast as possible. If you go too fast while butchering or skinning your deer, you will mess up some meat. Take it nice and slow for your first few deer.
I have been a lifelong fan of BenchMade for my everyday carry pocket knives. That holds true for my hunting knives too. Their MeatCrafter was created by BenchMade and MeatEater to be the perfect boning knife in the field or the kitchen. For me, it is the go-to tool to debone a whitetail. If you are in the market, you can get this knife for less than $200 at Sportsmans Warehouse at this link.
You also want to ensure that your deer meat tastes good when you’re done. Cutting into an organ or the bladder while skinning will leave a bad taste in your meat. The overall process for making deer meat taste good is fairly involved before you even start cooking. If you don’t want your deer meat to taste gamey, read my other article about processing your deer from field to freezer.
It is also pretty useful to watch someone who knows what they are doing butcher a deer. I have been watching a ton of Meat Eater lately, and Steven Rinella knows a thing or two about butchering an animal. So check out this video of him breaking down a whitetail after it has been quartered. If you need a guide on getting your deer skinned and quartered, just start this video from the beginning.
After you get your deer quartered and butchered, it is vital that you prepare it correctly for the freezer! If you do it correctly, you can keep deer meat in your freezer for multiple years. If you want your meat to last as long as possible, go check out my complete guide on freezing deer meat!
Shot Placement
Another way we lose meat is by ruining it with our shot. It is not uncommon for me to totally ruin a front shoulder during gun season. It happens. Ideally, you want to aim a few inches farther back than the front shoulder and hit just behind it.
You can also go for a double lung shot, which is what I do when bow hunting. Either way, if you are shooting a deer just for eating, think about your shot placement before pulling the trigger.
Some guys go for neck or head shots on deer to save all the meat, but I wouldn’t suggest it. Those are smaller targets, and there is a much higher margin of error. If you are aiming at the neck, the vital area is fairly narrow, and if you are off, you will blow a muscle off and likely not find that deer, but it will certainly die.
Headshots are also risky, and when you do hit them, it is pretty gross. To each their own, but I avoid shooting deer in the head or neck at all costs. The vital organs like the lungs or heart are a much easier and more ethical shot.
Quick Reference
The Omega Outdoors Meat Yield calculator will give you the most accurate answer, but some readers prefer to look at a table. If that’s the case for you, I went ahead and made one for deer weighing between 100 and 200 pounds after they have been field-dressed.
| Field Dressed Weight (lbs) | Meat Yield Range (lbs) |
|---|---|
| 100 | 36 – 41 |
| 110 | 39 – 45 |
| 120 | 43 – 49 |
| 130 | 46 – 54 |
| 140 | 50 – 58 |
| 150 | 54 – 62 |
| 160 | 57 – 66 |
| 170 | 61 – 70 |
| 180 | 65 – 74 |
| 190 | 68 – 78 |
| 200 | 72 – 82 |
That’s all there is to it! Pick out a young deer that’s good for eating, make a solid shot that doesn’t waste meat, and then dress it and plug in its weight to the Omega Outdoors Meat Yield Calculator! Coupled with your experience level as a butcher, you should get a fairly accurate estimate. If you have any questions or have tried out my calculator and want to send me your feedback, feel free to email me at Patrick.Long@omegaoutdoors.net. Good luck in the deer woods this year!
Sister Post | Do Rutting Bucks Taste Bad?
A sister post is another post that I have written that follows along with the same topic as the one you just read. After reading this article, you will probably like this next one even more! Here is a little teaser…
Does the rut make bucks taste worse? It makes sense that while they are all riled up that the testosterone and other hormones would have some effect, and they do. Although, is it really such a difference from what that same buck would taste like in September rather than November? Well, after doing some digging, I have finally found an answer…Keep Reading
Rutting vs. Non-Rutting Meat
So the question is, if you shot the same exact deer in September as you did in November, would it taste the same? I would have to say…Keep Reading
Properly Caring for Meat
The first thing to consider is what kind of deer you are going to shoot. If you want the best-tasting deer possible, you want a…Keep Reading
If you did a quick search on google for how much your deer weighed, hopefully, these sections will pop up and answer your question. If you want a more exact answer, try using the calculator at the top of this article or the table above.
How Much Meat Do You Get From a 100-Pound Deer?
Deer meat yield depends on a butcher’s experience level. An expert butcher can get about 41 pounds of meat from a 100-pound field-dressed whitetail deer. The average hunter can expect to yield around 37.5 pounds if they do it themselves. Although poor shot placement will ruin meat and reduce yield.
How Much Meat Do You Get From a 110-Pound Deer?
Deer meat yield depends on a butcher’s experience level. An expert butcher can get about 45 pounds of meat from a 110-pound field-dressed whitetail deer. The average hunter can expect to yield around 41 pounds if they do it themselves. Although poor shot placement will ruin meat and reduce yield.
How Much Meat Do You Get From a 120-Pound Deer?
Deer meat yield depends on a butcher’s experience level. An expert butcher can get about 49 pounds of meat from a 120-pound field-dressed whitetail deer. The average hunter can expect to yield around 45 pounds if they do it themselves. Although poor shot placement will ruin meat and reduce yield.
How Much Meat Do You Get From a 130-Pound Deer?
Deer meat yield depends on a butcher’s experience level. An expert butcher can get about 54 pounds of meat from a 130-pound field-dressed whitetail deer. The average hunter can expect to yield around 48.5 pounds if they do it themselves. Although poor shot placement will ruin meat and reduce yield.
How Much Meat Do You Get From a 140-Pound Deer?
Deer meat yield depends on a butcher’s experience level. An expert butcher can get about 58 pounds of meat from a 140-pound field-dressed whitetail deer. The average hunter can expect to yield around 52 pounds if they do it themselves. Although poor shot placement will ruin meat and reduce yield.
How Much Meat Do You Get From a 150-Pound Deer?
Deer meat yield depends on a butcher’s experience level. An expert butcher can get about 62 pounds of meat from a 150-pound field-dressed whitetail deer. The average hunter can expect to yield around 56 pounds if they do it themselves. Although poor shot placement will ruin meat and reduce yield.
How Much Meat Do You Get From a 175-Pound Deer?
Deer meat yield depends on a butcher’s experience level. An expert butcher can get about 72 pounds of meat from a 175-pound field-dressed whitetail deer. The average hunter can expect to yield around 65 pounds if they do it themselves. Although poor shot placement will ruin meat and reduce yield.
How Much Meat Do You Get From a 200-Pound Deer?
Deer meat yield depends on a butcher’s experience level. An expert butcher can get about 82 pounds of meat from a 200-pound field-dressed whitetail deer. The average hunter can expect to yield around 75 pounds if they do it themselves. Although poor shot placement will ruin meat and reduce yield.