How much meat from a deer?
Not sure which weight to pick?
Field-dressed: guts out, hide and head still on. Hanging: skinned, head and lower legs off. Live: the whole animal. Not sure? Pick field-dressed, the most common. Nothing you type leaves your device.
What the numbers mean
Hunters mean different things by "weight": the whole animal (live), the animal with the guts out (field-dressed), or the skinned carcass a processor hangs (hanging). This calculator converts between all three, then estimates boneless meat from the result. Read the guide for a plain-language walk-through and tables, or the sources to see where every factor comes from and where published numbers disagree.
Rule of thumb from measured data: expect roughly half of a whitetail's field-dressed weight as boneless meat. The Ohio Division of Wildlife weighed 115 deer and found 48.5% on average.
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