What happened to my backstrap?

[tgil]

Just finished a wt doe. As you can see from what was left

there wasn't a whole lot of meat left
on the bone. My final weights were:
26lbs of ground, 5lbs bs and tenders, 6lbs of dog treats.
Before anyone starts screaming about 6lbs going to the dogs, that is rib meat that I normally don't mess with anyway. When I was cutting her up, I saw jerky hanging there. Once I got it in the house I saw more fat and silver skin than anything.

[txpitdog]

I started processing my own after finding a piece of bullet jacket in a deer I had shot with a hardcast. As far as weight goes, I shot two nilgai cows this summer and got right at 200lbs of meat. I've been told I got ripped off by the processor, but I processed it myself.

[Bowtechlady]

It has happened to me so I feel your pain. I have also learned who gets my business and who doesn't!

[Larry L]

Is anyone trustworthy anymore? Why don't they get off their butts and get their own meat !!!

[stinkbelly]

Ok given all this my opinion would be this in regards to the bs. They cut off the ribeye end and pitched it in the grind which is probably what should have been done because while a ribeye sounds good, it never is on game. (maybe moose or buffalo but not on deer and elk I've tried)
So that will reduce it a little. The processor may (hopefully) trimmed away some of the meat that had water damage. While it doesn't hurt anything what so ever, it would tend to toughen meat and can get a white-ish color to it. Again it doesn't hurt but it would cause a ton of hunters that have no clue what water does to meat to either call complaining or start bad mouthing them because the meat has a white tint to it and "the processor ruined my stuff". Again I don't find fault in this.
All that said, I would bet there was a pretty good chunk of meat left when they trimmed the silver side. The silver side is the hard grissly side you see right after you skin the deer, not the part that is next to the rib cage or backbone. Many times when these cutters clean that off they just run their knife as close to it as they can get. I see it time and again, large strips being left on the silver skin. The problem is they have to cut it off or on ever bite you will have grissle in you mouth.
Keep in mind also these guys working a processing shop never get paid well, it's a thankless job that if you deal with the clients you get a pretty steady flow of butt chewings. So many of these issues are a result of meat hitting the bone barrel vs being kept and it hits the barrel because they are in a hurry and I can't imagine a whole bunch of care being taken as they aren't paid like they should be.
So in short, the water damage could have caused a loss and the grinding of the ribeye end as well. Neither the fault of the processor.
They should have though been certain they aren't cutting a 1/2" if backstrap out when they try to fillet the silver side off and I'm sure sonme of that happened.
Next time keep your tenderlions and backstraps and either come to springtown and I will show you how or call me and I'll walk you through it.

As for not getting your tenderloins back, that is bs and I don't mean bull crap.

So Keep, with all the not so perfect meat being trimmed off, do you think 8 pounds of backstrap is the proper amount?

This is the reason I won't publically call out the processor, because I am not sure what happened.

[Pistol]

I usually figure meat yield will be about 35-40% of live weight. At 500# live weight, 35% is 175#. You got back 158#; I think you were shorted a little but not much.