Lake George Co processor meat thief

[WVBLESSEDu]

Has anyone used Crippons Processing in Lake George and what was your experience like? My story is like this. We went elk hunting last year and I harvested a 4x4 bull and we deboned all the meat on the mountain and packed it out 1.5 miles. It was by far my best hunting trip to date until we took the meat to Crippons. We gave him 175lbs of clean, lean, boned out meat that he weighed and even commented on how clean it was no dirt or anything on it. Well,,, when we picked the meat up on the way home. It's only 96lbs of meat. We were in a hurry to get home and didn't realize what had just happened. Half way home we stopped and took all the meat out and it was oviouse we were missing a whole loin and lots of steaks. We call thinking he forgot a box of meat,,, Troy said nope we got back what we we should have and hung up the phone. Shocked, upset, angry and #*+%# is what I felt. We called DNR and many other places to see what could be done with no luck. Took the whole wonderful trip to a down hill tumble. All the hard work we did packing all that meat out and he just steals it. What's your guys thoughts?

 

[Gr8bawana]

It's too bad you had a bad experience with the processor. That being said, did you have any by-products made like sausage or salami or burger? There is no way you had 100% usable meat that would go into steak and roast packages. You have the shanks, rib meat and a lot of neck meat that is usually used for the by-products. There is a lot of trimming required. Now whether it was 76 pounds worth I don't know.
Processors in hunting areas probably do hundreds of elk and deer so I doubt they would steal nearly half of someones meat, maybe a piece here and there...maybe.

 

[buckbull]

Its fine to vent your frustration but if you want an explanation from the processor I would file a report with the BBB. That seems to garner some attention from business owners.

 

[Slugz]

http://www.skinnymoose.com/racktracker/2008/09/04/how-much-meat-will-i-get-from-my-elk/

Gents,
See the link above for some really good data.

 

[tim]

Just so you know, the BBB has no real authority, they can shame some on into doing the right thing, but can not force anyone.

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

Many, many years ago I had the same situation, that is why I do my own butchering. Another thing is there is no way you know if you are getting your own meat back.

Just sayin...........

 

[go_deep]

University of Wyoming did a study on elk, google it and it'll come up. Long story short they processed some 550+ elk over 2-3 years, cows, bulls, young ones, old ones. Anyway in the end they came up a a percentage of edible meat on an elk, this percentage held true through the age group of animals. That percentage of edible weigh was .1955%. Meaning you had 96 pounds of meat, so your elk would have had a live weight of basically 500 pounds, if all your weight packed out (175#) was all edible meat your elk would have had a live weight of 900 pounds. Now I'm not saying he didn't trim to much meat, or didn't take any, just telling you what I read. I have done all my processing for 15 years, these percentages that the UW came up with have held true to the elk i have taken.

 

[WVBLESSEDu]

I know what u guys are saying but we deboned and trimmed most of the non usable stuff off of the meat on the mountain to cut down on the pack weight. We had a regular cut. Burger. Steak and loin. That's all. I butcher lots and lots of deer. I know u have waste. All the meat that couldn't be cut into steaks should have been burger. Plus. We had him cut the loin into 1" thick cuts. We were missing a whole loin. We called three dif processors in that area and asked them how much waste they would have if it was clean lean boned out cuts. They all said 10-15lbs at most if it was cleaned well. Which it was.
This happened last year and we are headed out now for a mule deer hunt. It's colder now so we will be butchering our own now. Last year it was warm , that's y we took it to Crippons. Anyway,,, it's done and over so it is a lesson learned.

 

[ore hunter]

ive gotten 2 elk now,2 years in a row and weighed the meat after deboning and vac packing,I got 292 lbs of meat out of my 4x3 bull,,,and 320 lbs of meat out of my colo 5x5.packaged and in freezer.sorry you got ripped off but average butcher shops don't relize how hard a person works for it and is usually in a hurry to slam out the product.doing it yourself is not easy,takes a lot of time ,but is worth it in the end product .

 

[BruinPoint]

When you trim it yourself then take it to a processor there's a good chance it sat in a cooler long enough to get a rind that had to be trimmed off. Still seems like an excessive amount but I don't see any upside for a meat cutter to screw anyone. Most probably have several entire animals that never get picked up every year.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[shootbrownelk]

Many, many years ago I had the same situation, that is why I do my own butchering. Another thing is there is no way you know if you are getting your own meat back.

Just sayin...........

I process my own as well Cowboy. I had a similar "Missing Meat" situation with a shady processor. Told me I had a lot of "Bloodshot" meat, when it was a perfect double lung pass through on the ribcage. The lying bastard. I get all MY meat now.

 

[Bonecollector]

I always butcher my own.
I don't trust that it will be properly cared for and I want "MY" meat back as I know I took care of it in the field unlike a lot of road hunter who shoot and haul it around all day....

Many, many years ago I had the same situation, that is why I do my own butchering. Another thing is there is no way you know if you are getting your own meat back.

Just sayin...........

 

[ColoradoV]

I usually cut up all my own meat but this year due to a set of circumstances that was unusual for us - my father made quite the drive to take her bull to Clark's Processing in Florissant and that is close to lake george.

This year during first rifle the father in law in town for his one week a year, kido events, and the temps only bottoming out in the high 40's (very unusual) we took her bull to a processor as I did not have a place to keep it cool and did not want to let it hang for more than one night.

I have to say that we are pleased with the results as they did a good job and I would recommend them if you are looking for a processor over in that area.

 

[CoHiCntry]

I've used Crippen's a couple times the past few years when temps were warm or I didn't have time to process my own meat which I prefer to do. The first two times went fine, no problems... last year I took in a buck and when I got it back everything seemed fine. Sometime later I realized there were no tenderloins??? I thought maybe they got wrapped and labeled wrong or something like that. After eating most of the deer and still no tenderloins I looked at my receipt and hand written sometime after the drop off was "no tenders". I'm not sure what happened? I know for sure they were there and even remember him pulling them out of the game bags and setting them on top of a pile of meat on the scale. They must have gotten lost somewhere in the process. This was several months later so I figured calling would be a waste of time. If I ever take another animal there I will mention this and also mention if it happens again, I'm done with him. For the record, I've heard bad things about every processor. Clark's included and probably more so than Crippen's. Over all Crippen's has a pretty good reputation here locally. At least for now...

 

[COLOelkman]

I too have heard too many stories like this and I butcher my own as it's really not that hard. I know I'd go broke as a butcher as I take my time to remove all misc stuff. I do think butchers "waste" more because they get paid based on weight in so if it's got much sinew, tendons, etc. in it, I'm guessing it would likely be trimmed off. So if you want the most meat back you just have to bite the bullet and DIY. I certainly do not do a whole animal continuously so I separate it, label it and freeze what I won't be able to process within 2-3 days. You can always thaw it out later and process it at a more convenient time. Anyway, there are some things that can be done to make processing less of a burden and it's taken me several years to learn. Sorry about your bad experience.

 

[dustin ray]

Sorry about your bad experience i hope we here form you again and some thing better than badmouthing some body on your first post just sayin this is not the first time we seen this