# How to get processed game home?



## sdaly (Jul 21, 2008)

My family and I are heading out next week to do some elk hunting in Oregon and I'll be driving my truck and pulling my travel trailer. My buddy and his son are also going (in their truck and trailer) and if all goes well we will be coming home with about 1200-1400 pounds of processed meat. We already have a local butcher lined up, but we still trying to figure out how to get all this meat home. The butcher can store meat for us for a while and ship it home for us. But we're also looking at either getting several large coolers with dry ice, or even putting a regular freezer in the back of one of our trucks and plugging it into a generator. We won't be going home right away so we need to keep the meat frozen for about a week while on the trip. Any other ideas for us?


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## cjk (Jul 21, 2008)

Why are you going to haul this meat around for a week?

If you need to site see, get it done before the hunt. 

I think you have your schedule backwards. 
I wouldnt want to risk loosing 1200lbs of elk meat. Its good stuff. 
Once the animal is bagged, meat frozen, its time to make a B-line for home to get it in the freezer. 

Good luck with the hunt, I will be heading out there in early Sept


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## sdaly (Jul 21, 2008)

cjk said:


> Why are you going to haul this meat around for a week?
> 
> If you need to site see, get it done before the hunt.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I know...if it were just me ,that's what I would be doing. But you know how it goes when you get more people involved. Between having two families involved, the wives with their plans, this is what I have to work with unfortunately. 

Thanks, it should be fun despite the planning headaches. Enjoy your trip in September!


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## boostnut (Jul 22, 2008)

most appliance manufacturers suggest not plugging in refridgerators/freezers for at least a few hours after transportation. My GUESS is that running them during transportation isn't a good idea. In the past I've put a freezer in my truck, loaded it w/beef and run it in for a couple of days before hitting the road. Before leaving just ice the heck out of it and hit the road. Good luck!


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## Spotted Owl (Jul 22, 2008)

You a, you may want to check the regs before starting your hunt in the next few weeks. Unless you drive awful slow you will have plenty of time for site-seeing before the hunt. The earliest elk season I know of in our state is archery and that starts Aug 30th. 

If I had no other choice but to pack it around for a week, I would use the heaviest(sp)cardboard boxes I could find and use dry ice. Then wrap it as tight as possible with your sleeping bags. Keep it out of the sun and elevated off the bed of your truck. Also be damn sure that it is frozen solid before you pack it up and start back. If you could rig an inverter into your trailer for a freezer that would probably be best and the generator would only be needed for night time when you would be unhooked from the tow rig. Your freezer would not be out in the open for any curious people to open and have a look-see or stupid people unplugging or turning off the generator.


Owl


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## Stihl051master (Jul 22, 2008)

How far of a drive is it from where you'll be hunting and how long it'll take to get home?


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## TimberMcPherson (Jul 23, 2008)

Take your own freezer to butchers, have elk processed and frozen in your own freezer. When you get home, get the freezer loaded on a courier truck and run down to you, meet it at the depot. 

Or see if theres any refridgerated trucks that it could be transported down on.

Either way its tricky


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## tree md (Jul 23, 2008)

When ever we hunt out of town we always find the closest processor to our hunting area and bring our deer to their cooler and pay them to store the deer until we are ready to leave.


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## sdaly (Jul 24, 2008)

Spotted Owl said:


> You a, you may want to check the regs before starting your hunt in the next few weeks. Unless you drive awful slow you will have plenty of time for site-seeing before the hunt. The earliest elk season I know of in our state is archery and that starts Aug 30th.



Thanks, although this is an LOP controlled hunt for cow elk which starts Aug. 2. Our guide has it all set up with private landowners so we're all set.

boostnut, thanks for the advice about not using while in transit. That sounds like a better idea to ice the heck out of it, then only plug it in at camp in the evenings after it's settled. We'll make sure the butcher has frozen it real good when we get it back, and worst case we can resort to dry ice. Worst, worst case we ask the butcher to hang onto it for us for a while.


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## sdaly (Aug 11, 2008)

Just returned home yesterday from our Oregon cow elk hunt. Four tags, and four cow elk bagged, gutted, skinned, and delivered to the butcher! :biggrinbounce2: Two days later, butcher had them processed and ready to pick up. We put a standard freezer in the back of one of our pickups and attached a generator. It worked like a charm! Generator was running while driving and had zero problems. Even in the 100+ degree heat going through the desert, the freezer remained below 0 degrees F. We eventually found that we really only needed to run it about 12 hours a day and it still stayed below 10 degrees.

Elk meat is home and we've already started enjoying some elk steaks. Next weekend is our elk meat grinding party!


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## cjk (Aug 11, 2008)

Awesome!!! Glad everything worked out. 


MMMMMM elk steak


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