UPDATES

Live weight, hanging weight and finished weight.   Live weight is how much the animal weighs when it's alive, on the hoof. Similar to how we weigh ourselves. Hanging Weight is a weight the butcher gives us after the animal has been killed, blood drained, head, hide, feet, entrails & organs removed.  Finished weight is the weight of the total product when its packaged.

For cattle, we age hang 14days.  For our deer meat, we hang anywhere from 2-7days.  During peak weeks, we may age less time due to our cooler capacity.  We also try to process the smaller deer first since they need less hang time.  We cannot guaranteed number of days per deer though. We continue to expand our coolers each year to meet the needs of our customers, but at the peak of season, aging time is reduced. 

Dry aging in our humidity and temperature controlled coolers allows time for the muscle enzymes to break down.  This does reduce the amount of yield in your meat due to "drip-loss" of fluid loss.  The meat itself doesn't disappear, it is simply losing water and therefore the volume of meat you get back is a better product.  We also track each individual carcass through the process and grind/package individually - you are definitely getting back YOUR ANIMAL!    

YES!!  Come to our facility and watch us process. You will see our methods of keeping everything separated and feel comfortable with how we handle the meat, our quality, and can trust you get your deer back.   The only exception is our cooked products.  Our equipment is large commercial grade and holds batches of approximately 100lbs in our grinder/stuffer and 300-400lbs per batch in our smoker. Therefore, it is impossible for us to do small 5-10lb runs of the cooked products.  But, rest assured... you know the Harpley's quality.  We quality control all deer that come into our facility and can assure you that all meat is handled in the same manner.