Imagine if I was to open a restaurant and needed you to tell me how much I could expect to make. That's about the equivalent of your question. There a literally dozens of variables that affect your question such as:
1) What kind of processing will you do? Bone-in, boneless, oven ready, smoked products, marinated, single wrapped, double wrapped, frozen, vacuum packed, etc.
2) How much will you charge?
3) Do you have a walkin cooler and freezer?
4) Will you freeze whole deer and/or pieces for later processing?
5) Will you include skinning? Northern hides can be sold, southern hides are not wanted
6) Where are you located? Is there a high deer population, liberal seasons, etc.
7) Will you process all seasons? Bow, gun, muzzleloader, crop damage, road kills?
8) How much help will you have?
10) How hard do you want to work? (We take vacation from our regular jobs to process during gun season, and work 10 -12 hours
a day, 7 days week.)
I'm closing in on forty years in the meat business and have seen every type of venison operation imaginable, from the back yard butcher to the totally modern operation. Their venison processing can vary from a dozen deer a year to a few thousand. Some will cut them for a little as $40 - $50 while a processor doing enhanced products and smoking may average $200 - $300 a deer.
The only person that can answer your question is you. If you have been helping a processor for 3 years you must have an idea what you can expect based on what you've seen. Be realistic and to be safe guess on the conservative side.
Dave & Ruth
D & R Processing
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