How to kill, butcher, and process a deer: a short (18 step) guide

1. Buy or apply for a tag. I bought a hunt your own land tag, which meant I could get either a buck or doe whitetail or mule deer. (Make sure to bring a zip tie or some twine… that will come in handy later!)
2. Get your guns!... and your ammo! Make sure to get a caliber large enough to kill the animal. My gun of choice is a 2-70, but that’s not what I used this year.
3. Dress in orange for safety. There are so many hunting accidents that would be avoidable if people took the appropriate safety measures. My brother, Dakota, explained why wearing orange won't hurt your stealthiness: apparently deer don’t see orange very well, so you still can blend in to the background.
4. Fill up the tank with gas. We drove all over our land looking for animals and it took about two tanks of gas before we finally found one.
5. Go hunting. Drive around, walk around, crawl around, until you find a good one. Make sure it’s on land you can hunt (in my case, on my family’s land).

Talking to other hunters on the phone.

My "hunting dog."

6. Take aim. Put the cross hairs over a kill spot; right above the shoulder if the deer’s broadside, in the middle of the white patch in the chest if the deer’s looking at you straight on (that’s how I got mine), or in the deer’s forehead. The forehead shot’s good because it doesn’t ruin any meat, but if you were planning on painting the skull or something there will be a bullet hole there.

My deer from 2011.

7. “Breathe and squeeze” Once you have your scope lined up, get the gun as steady as possible. Take a deep breath and on the exhale, squeeze the trigger.

8. Check the results. If you got a kill shot, you can approach it quickly, but if you just wounded it, stay back for a little while so it won’t run away. A wounded animal can still outrun you, and you don’t want it getting away so it can suffer and be coyote food. If it’s wounded enough you can approach it but it won’t get up, slit its throat, or put another round through its head to put it out of its misery.

This is the deer I shot. In the bottom center of the photo

 you can see the red spot where I hit it. 

It dropped on the first shot. When we 

butchered it, we discovered it was a lung shot.

9. Put the tag on it. Once the dear is dead, you have to fill out the tag and put it on the deer. You’ll have to sign the tag, and put the time/date of the kill.

10. Gut it and load it or load it and gut it. There’s some discrepancy about what to do next. You can either gut it right where you killed it and they load it into the pickup, or you can load it into the pickup, take it to where you’ll be processing it, and then gut it. If you gut it on the field it’s lighter and easier to load. If you gut it where you’ll be processing it, it’ll probably be warmer (winter deer season) but you’ll have to haul the guts away. We decided to load it without gutting it because we wanted to save time so we could look for another deer for my dad.

It was worth it, because we both found one.

11. Hang it up. After it’s gutted, you can cut part of the hind legs off so you can hang it up. It needs to hang for at least a day so the meat won’t be really tough. It has to do with how the meat reacts to death.

It's a slow process, but first you have to cut of the ends 

of the legs to be able to hang it from the hocks.

12. Skin it. There’s also some debate here. Some people skin it and then let it hang, and others don’t skin it until they’re ready to get the meat. Here’s the reasoning for skinning it first: it’s a little cleaner. When skinning, hair and dirt from the hide is bound to get on the meat. If you skin it first, then let it hang for a day or so, a hard crust will form on the outer portion of the meat. We skin off this crust, and it provides a clean layer of meat to process. I’m sure professionals can get in there lickety-split and not get a single hair on the meat, but we’re not that good.

13.  Let it hang. Wait a day or so to let it process. Make sure it’s in a clean, cold space so the meat doesn’t spoil.

14.  Set up a processing shop. You’ll need sharp knives, a clean table, a few tubs to store the meat and seasonings. I wanted my deer turned into summer sausage, deer sticks, and deer jerkey because that’s what my husband prefers, but other people cut it into ground venison, can it, or save chunks for roasts and whatnot. For my summer sausage and deer sticks, we used my uncle’s grinder, sausage casings, and seasonings. For the jerky, we used a slicer.

15.  Process the meat. Here’s where you grind, season, pack the sausage casings and slice the meat for strips of jerky. The jerky needs to sit in a marinade to season the meat.

Here's Wyatt working with some of the deer sticks.

16.  Cook the meat. Depending on the amount of meat, look online for what temperature and amount of time you need to cook the meat at. It’s a lengthy process, so be sure that you won’t need to use the oven for at least six hours. For the jerky, lay the strips over a hail screen and cook it in the oven, or cook it in the smoker.

Deer sticks post-cooking. We cut them into 

smaller pieces and vacuum seal them.

Cooked strips of jerky.

17.  Pack and store the meat. My husband and I aren’t about to eat 40+ pounds of meat before it all goes bad, so vacuum seal the meat, put some in the fridge and some in the freezer.

18.  Enjoy the meat!

Here's the man who's going to be eating the 

bulk of the meat... Turns out deer 

products make a great Christmas present!

Some thoughts: Hunting is a great way to come face to face with your food. Since less than 2% of the American population are directly involved in production agriculture, that means about 98% of the population hasn’t had the opportunity raise or process their own food, outside of maybe a garden. It’s hard work to produce food.

Hunting is a little different because the animals are wild. They raise themselves, and we use that meat for sustenance. It’s also different because hunting is fun—it’s fun to go out and drive around God’s country. It’s fun to hang out and talk and look around for some brown spots on the horizon. It’s fun to test yourself and your mastery with a weapon.

For anyone...

who says...

Kansas isn't...

absolutely, beautifully, breathtaking.

But we have to remember that we are stewards over the land. That we should care for it, and try our best not to be wasteful. We’re not out there just to get a pretty pearly white rack to hang in our living room or get a cool picture to put on Facebook. 

Because let's face it... a real country girl 

doesn't need any props in her selfies. :)