For a list of offerings and up-to-date pricing, please view our 2026 Processing Form. Do not fill out this form ahead of time. The butcher and client will fill it out together at the time of delivery.

Every delivery must be accompanied by a valid punched tag. Don’t forget to bring your tag. This tag will stay with us while we are in possession of your animal, and will be returned to you when you pick up your meat. Your taxidermist does not need your tag, but they may want to record the info on it

Highland Meat Harvest is a small, specialty meat processor whose mission is to provide a quality service to responsible hunters. We limit ourselves to a select few number of animals per week in order to ensure the best food-safety standards and guarantee the highest quality end product for each client. We do not offer shipping, and walk-ins are not welcome, you must call or text before arrival to confirm there is space for your animal, and pickup in person.

Each delivery will be inspected for condition before it is accepted. An exceptionally clean and cared-for harvest may receive a “pro-level” discount on the price of processing. Any harvest with an excessive level of dirt or hair, or one that has been allowed to spoil, will incur extra cleaning fees on a sliding scale of $20-$100. If a harvest has been neglected, stored, transported, or field-dressed particularly poorly, it will be refused. In order to avoid the inconvenience of additional cleaning fees or refused delivery, please follow these guidelines carefully.

Cool your meat! The internal body temp of an elk is above 100°F. When a game animal dies, if that heat is not allowed to escape then it will rather quickly produce off-flavors, and soon after cause the meat to spoil by allowing the rapid reproduction of spoilage bacteria. Hunters often ask me how long they have to cool their meat. The answer is simply AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Spoilage bacteria @ 100°F can double every 20 minutes. In hot early-season conditions, the deep tissue meat of a thick elk hind-quarter could spoil in a few hours. When cattle and hogs are slaughtered at a USDA inspected facility for public meat consumption, the carcasses are immediately skinned, eviscerated (gutted), halved, and put in a very cold refrigerator with a massive amount of airflow. When I hear of wives or family members that dislike the “gamey” flavor of wild animals, my first thought is always “that animal was not cooled quickly enough!” Occasionally this is due to circumstances out of the hunter’s control (the animal ran far, or onto private property for example), but most often it is due to unpreparedness or lack of awareness. So if you hope to enjoy the highest yield and quality of meat, cool the carcass as quickly as possible.

Western big-game hunters love the “gutless” method of quartering, but they are forgetting that a quick gutting is the best way to remove the most heat in the shortest amount of time. In addition to rapid heat loss, gutting provides for a much cleaner removal (and therefore higher yield) of the tenderloins and hind quarters. Eviscerating an animal in the field should take no more than 10-15 minutes after a little practice. There is perhaps a time and place for the gutless method (late in the day in grizzly territory) but the age-old technique of gutting a harvested game animal should be the norm, not the exception.

The hair and hide of a game animal provides a very thick, very effective form of insulation. Its insulating properties do not disappear after the animal dies. Removing the hide in the field immediately allows for significant heat loss. The more meat area exposed to air, the more moisture will evaporate. Every molecule of evaporating moisture takes heat along with it. For this reason, hot quarters should never be placed into plastic bags. Every hunter should carry the proper size and amount of clean fabric game-bags for their intended quarry. Game bags allow moisture loss while keeping dirt, debris, insects and bacteria off the meat. Even during a hot early-season elk harvest, quickly placing skinned quarters in game bags and hanging them under a shady tree or a cool ravine will allow for a very acceptable amount of heat loss. If you are hunting in terrain without these types of features, coolers with ice should always be on hand. If you are intending to use this tactic to cool your quarters, they should be laid flat on top of the ice, inside game-bags, in a single layer (not stacked on top of each other) and with the drain plug removed to allow meltwater to drain. With a large animal, this could take many coolers. Carefully removing the shank from each quarter can allow them to fit better, without causing much reduction in yield. Keep in mind this method does not allow for moisture loss, and generally speaking, the drier your meat is kept the better the final product will be. Never let meat sit in the hot sun in your truck bed for longer than required. Packing bags of ice inside the hot cavity of a gutted deer or pronghorn can be a cheap and effective way of cooling until you are able to hang and skin the animal, or deliver it to the processor.

Cold-storage solutions before delivery to the shop can be difficult. Few people have access to proper cold-storage facilities, but some DIY solutions can suffice if immediate delivery is not possible. Quarters should be hung vertically to allow for moisture to drip. Proper space should be maintained between quarters to allow for moisture to evaporate. Dehumidifying agents (sodium chloride or calcium chloride) or electric dehumidifiers can be utilized cheaply and effectively. Before you go to bed after your long and arduous day of hunting, a storage solution must be found. During the cooler late-season months, quarters can be hung in your garage, basement, or under your deck. During warmer weather, I have used old refrigerators with the shelves removed and hooks installed in the top. Coolers are fine for a night or two, but remember to let them drain and replace the ice. Whatever solution you devise, meat should be cooled below 40°F as soon as possible, and stored below that threshold temperature for as much time as possible until it can be delivered.

The bigger your animal, the more urgent the cooling process is. Under the same set of conditions, it takes A LOT longer for a thick moose (or bison) hindquarter to cool than it does for one from a mule deer. In early season conditions, be prepared to bone-out a large hind quarter immediately so that the muscles can be laid out thinner and allow more heat to escape. The meat surrounding the femur is always the first to rot on any animal. The thick neck of a rutting bull elk is also quite good at trapping heat. Front quarters are usually thin enough (after they’ve been separated from the ribcage) to cool on their own without boning out.

Keep it clean! We take pride in getting the best yield possible from every animal, and we expect our clients to do the same. Of course elk can sometimes die in a flat grassy field, or they could die on a steep dirty slope, so we do not expect every delivery to look like it came right from a slaughterhouse, but there are a few basic things every hunter should know about being prepared to properly field dress.

A wild animal’s hide is dirty. It will ALWAYS contain a baseline amount of dirt, urine, and feces, and therefore a lot of bacteria. Every hunter should have in their stack of game bags 5-10 pairs of disposable nitrile gloves. Gloves should be changed often: after eviscerating, after skinning a quarter, after removing a hoof or head. The worst thing a hunter can do (especially if they hope to age their harvest) is handle a dirty hide with the same glove they will later grab a piece of the meat with. When slicing through hide always orient the sharp edge of the knife out towards the skin, away from the meat. Cut by pushing gently with the knife and pulling the hide taut with your other hand. Cutting with the knife on the outside of the hide pushing through the hair and in towards the meat will sever thousands of dirty hairs (not to mention dull your blade). These will stick to the meat, then contaminate the butchering space, and undoubtedly end up in the final product. Skinning an animal with as few cuts through the hide as possible will keep it the cleanest. Use a strong pull and a gentle touch of a sharp blade to separate the skin from the meat, and try to keep it in one large piece separated only along the line of the belly, up the neck, and down along the inside of each quarter.

A second set of hands is extremely useful in removing quarters and placing them directly into a game bag before anything can touch the meat. The game bag can then do its job of keeping insects, dirt and debris away from the meat, especially if the quarters are not laid directly on the ground. A fifth or sixth game bag can be very useful for keeping boneless meat clean and separated from the larger quarters.

Be careful with your knife when field dressing and do not make unnecessary cuts. Take your time, and whenever possible, follow directly along bones and the lines of fascia between muscles. Every needless slice into flesh creates more surface area for bacteria to attach itself to, especially if your knife blade has been dirtied by resting it on the ground or removing hide, head, or hooves. This surface area will need to be removed in the trimming process, creating more work and significantly reducing your yield. This meat loss is commonly seen around the hip bone, where the muscle being damaged is the top-sirloin, an excellent steak cut. Have a buddy gently pull up on the quarter to take the weight of it while you drag only the tip of your knife along the inside of the hip-bone. It can be difficult to make this cut properly when using the gutless method.

A good order of operations for keeping an elk harvest clean while field dressing would look something like this:

• Punch your tag, eat a snack, figure out where the closest shade for staging harvested meat is, and prepare all materials to have at the ready.

  • 5-6 game bags

  • many pairs of nitrile gloves

  • replacement knives or knife blades for when one gets dull

  • ziploc bags for offal

  • water for drinking and washing, bear spray, sidearm

• Eviscerate. Slice down the belly (face knife outwards) being careful not to puncture the intestines. Remove everything from the base of the trachea/esophagus at the front of the chest cavity all the way back to the anus and 1-2” of the hide surrounding it. Be sure to remove the entire rectum by pulling it INTO the abdominal cavity (do not sever it inside the hip bone!). You can use a piece of string to tie the anus shut so that the feces inside the rectum don’t fall out during the process. Before the guts spill out onto the ground, remove the liver (it is attached to the bottom of the spine at the point where the diaphragm separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity). After the guts spill out, sort through and find the heart inside the pericardum (fluid filled protective sack). These may go directly into ziploc bags, and the liver of a large animal can require many bags. Change your gloves and carefully remove both tenderloins from the inside of the cavity. Start at the hip bone and peel forwards to keep from tearing apart the fragile muscle structure.

• Skin and remove all the meat from the top side (the left side of the animal if it is laying on its right side). Do the hindquarter first. Start at the hoof and slice along the inside of the leg where the skin and hair is the thinnest, keeping the hide in one continuous piece. Slice perpendicularly through the backstrap right at the point it enters the hip bone. Then skin and remove the front quarter, and keep skinning from both sides up and over the spine to expose the whole backstrap. Cut perpendicularly into the backstrap at the base of the neck to give yourself a stopping point, then begin peeling the backstrap from back to front (going front to back will tear the muscle grains and create significantly more surface area and waste). Lastly on this top side remove as much neck meat in one large piece, and as much meat from the ribs as possible, placing everything inside a game bag as you go.

• Now you have half the meat removed, and the hide has only been cut through along the belly, up the neck, and down the inside of each leg. Use the single large piece of hide you just peeled as a tarp, by stretching it out above the animal and rolling the carcass over onto it. Repeat the same process in the same order for the right side of the animal since it is now laying on its left. (hind quarter, front quarter, backstrap, neck and rib meat). Lastly, remove the tongue by slicing through the thick hide and fur on the underside of the jaw, and pulling the tongue down through the opening. The neck meat makes the best stew, the rib meat is fantastic for ground, and the tongue is the most prized cut on the entire animal for those who know how to prepare it. Even if you do not like to eat heart, liver, or tongue, take them anyway. We will find someone who does.

• Harvest the lymph nodes for CWD testing, clean up, pack your bags, and hang any extra meat somewhere in the shade if it will need to wait for another haul. The head ALWAYS comes out last.

Keep it big! This is perhaps the least obvious to the western elk hunter, but if your quarry is small enough, the terrain simple enough, and distance short enough, DRAG IT! Only quarter when it is required.

Eviscerate at the kill site to reduce the weight and start the process of heat loss. Bag up the offal (heart and liver) and if you think the cavity will get dirty on your drag then bag up the tenderloins as well. You can remove the head, especially if it has big antlers, keep the hide on so everything stays clean, and start pulling. Of course keeping the hide on will trap some heat inside, but if the animal is small enough to drag then the quarters won’t be thick enough to trap much heat anyway.

Keeping your harvest in as large of pieces as possible will ALWAYS provide for the highest yield. Every cut creates more surface area for bacteria to grow on. However, it is still far more important to properly cool your animal, which can often mean skinning or boning out. Keep it big, keep it clean, but not at the cost of proper cooling.

When an animal is too big to drag or move whole, first quarter it and plan to make multiple hauls, leaving the hide, hooves, spine, and ribcage in the field. Then you may choose to follow this order of operations for reducing haul weight, adding an additional step only when more weight needs to be lost:

1. Leave the liver, especially if it was damaged by the shot. Livers are often very heavy.

2. Leave very small pieces of trimmed meat. The yield of these can be miniscule after cleaning.

3. Remove the Shanks from each quarter and bone them out. The meat is still useable and delicious even without the marrow bone. The quarters can still be hung (dry-aged) without the shank.

4. Bone out the hindquarters. The muscles in the hind are much larger compared to the frontquarters and therefore make less surface area when separated. The femur is also quite heavy.

5. Bone out the humerus from the front quarter. Also a heavy bone.

6. As a last resort only, bone out the scapula. Removing it will create a lot of surface area and waste, and will likely damage beyond repair the Flatiron steaks, which next to the tenderloins are the most tender on the animal, but with much better flavor. The scapula is thin and doesn’t weigh much, so your slight weight savings probably won’t justify the reduction in yield.

In recent years, Chronic Wasting Disease has been spreading at an alarming rate. The contagious prions that spread this disease exist in the central nervous system of the cervid animals we hunt. If you would like to do your part in limiting the spread of this disease, we recommend not cutting through the spinal cord of a harvested animal. Leave the spine whole in the field, or take it out whole with a carcass that can be dragged. Remove the head LAST, along with the lymph nodes for CWD testing. If you must do it before all the meat has been harvested, then limit the possibility of contaminating your meat by changing your gloves, and replacing or cleaning your knife thoroughly.

Be prepared. Be quick. Be respectful of your harvest by maximizing the useable yield. Please consult us if you have any questions about this information. We are always happy to help you improve your field dressing skills.