Hunting for food...does it justify the cost?

[ScottSD]

This all sound great. But how much time do you usually spend in the woods before you get one deer?

All I am saying is if you spend 40 hours hunting and catch one deer at 5.00/hour thats 200.00 for one deer.

At this point you'd be better off getting a second job and buying the meat yourself (if this is the case)

other than that it seems like you guys have really figured out to cut corners on butchering and amo. Pretty impressive.

Still wondering about hit/miss ratio

Financially it may not make sense, but who can put a price on spending hours with your kids hunting? When you do that, you are creating memories for a lifetime, and passing down a tradition throughout the generations of your family.

On top of that, knowing how to hunt, kill, and process wild game may become a necessity one day, if things keep heading down the toilet like they have in recent years......

Your comment about finding a part-time job to spend the time at making more financial sense could be applied to ANY thing self-sufficient, including gardening, raising chickens, etc. Those things don't make financial sense either, in most cases.


BTW, this past season, we killed and processed 5 deer for our family alone.

 

[k15n1]

This all sound great. But how much time do you usually spend in the woods before you get one deer?

All I am saying is if you spend 40 hours hunting and catch one deer at 5.00/hour thats 200.00 for one deer.

At this point you'd be better off getting a second job and buying the meat yourself (if this is the case)

other than that it seems like you guys have really figured out to cut corners on butchering and amo. Pretty impressive.

Still wondering about hit/miss ratio

You don't have to pay for your time unless you're skipping work.

Most people can stand to skip some TV time. And it counts as excercise, which many people pay for.

My less-than-full-time friends are all complaining that they can't get enough hours... a perfect opportunity to go hunting, right?

 

[me&thegals]

Depends on how you look at it.

DH hunts and it is pure pleasure time for him. It's his hobby AND it provides our family's meat.
Then, he takes the kids with him, and it's special child time.
When he hunts with friends and family, it becomes extended family bonding.

You can spend as little or as much as you want--pretty much like with anything. DH is fairly frugal, although he mounts deer heads rather frequently as he keeps getting enormous bucks. Other than that, though, he is frugal.

But it does take a lot of time. DH was offered 1/4 of a beef in exchange for helping butcher. That, plus 4 deer and 1 hog. Then, last weekend, he spent at least 10 hours taking the ground meat and bagging it, turning some into breakfast sausage, some into regular sausage, some into jerky. It took a LOT of time, but he's a grain farmer and he has some time this season. Plus, it's in-house time with us chatting with him, and family life revolving around him.

I simply refuse to buy meat from the store any more (other than fish), and he agrees. So he hunts and puts in the time to make it into excellent food whose diet we know, whose butchering we have done.

 

[kimnkell]

I think it's very worth hunting your own meat. My Hubby hunts for pleasure and isn't counted as work. He loves to hunt and its a joy to him to just be out in the woods enjoying nature. Plus it's all natural meat... and we butcher it ourselves... have you ever seen any of the video's about how they process a cow??? Yuck!! I don't want any meat from the supermarket unless I have to or it's a really good sale and I can't resist. As for beef though I never buy it from the grocery because we have enough deer to last us all year long and I personally think it's just as good as beef or better. . Hubs already killed two deer this year and never had to leave our yard. Never missed either time so it cost one bullet each. Pretty cheap... besides that I would pay 200.00 for a deer any day... you can buy venison in the store (not around here anyway). We don't have to have a hunting license either to hunt on our own farm which is approx. 100 acres and then we have my husbands aun't's farm and his Mother's farm that are attached to hunt on as well... so we have around 300 acres to hunt on. Any meat that we don't kill hunting we raise ourselves (with the exception of pork) we do buy it sometimes. But...yes.... overall considering it's definatley worth it.

 

[the funny farm6]

My anniversary is feb 6th. And my gift to my hubby is always his fishing/hunting licence. All he ever realy asks for and needs.

 

[dillpickle]

is there places in the US where you can go and get an unusual amount of meat/kill without a lot of cost other than camping? if so, perhaps a few months out of the year and a little traveling might justify it.

 

[Beekissed]

Not unless you are real good friends with a farmer in your own state who happens to have corn crops as his major agricultural endeavor and even then you are hindered by the legal limit and the season in which you are hunting.

Here in WV we have the same rule as previously mentioned...we don't have to buy a license if we are hunting our own acreage.

 

[dillpickle]

I just read that Texas allows hunters to kill wild hogs year-round without limits! I wonder how many hogs there are/competition since im sure there are plenty of hog hunters because of this.

 

[dillpickle]

wow this news article said they number in the millions! lol

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/A-Plague-of-Pigs-in-Texas.html

 

[dillpickle]

and I just found out there is no limit on gees in Louisiana!