It sounds like my $300 price tag for butchering a moose is outdated.

A local guy now charges $750.

I spoke to a young fellow I know today. He shot a 50 incher with his bow. He got 532 pounds of meat. The butchering cost $920. He gave the guy $1000.

Realize not everyone has the same skill set, but my family has always butchered our own meat. If I had to pay money like that to get a critter processed, I'd think twice about killing it.

Here at work yesterday, I weighed a dozen chicken eggs: 1.63 pounds, foam carton and all. Eggs are over $2/pound.

Musher's friend has $2 a pound in his moose. Plus his other expenses.

The way I've got this figured, 500 pounds of meat, would nearly fill a 55-gallon drum. That's over 7 cubic feet. Once that meat is wrapped, it's going to take up a good chunk of the freezer.

Talking to a friend the other day, until a few years ago he beside a gravel/dirt road, it's paved now. I mentioned the man hauling his moose on an open trailer for 4 hours, on a dirt road. I can imagine what it looked like.

We've been really really dry here, I've had 1/2-inch of rain, it's been 6 or 7, maybe 8 weeks? Leaves have been falling for 2 months, and I've had frost 4 or 5 times so far.

But talking about butchering prices, a local man took his deer to a shop. As well as I remember, they charged him around $135. But he just delivered the deer, and went back a week or so later and picked it up. That was cut, wrapped and frozen, plus he had jerky made. It was made into like a summer sausage, sort of like a beef stick and all.

So, that meat had been seasoned, ground, baked and put out in individual wrappers. I can see where that would be expensive.

The man I was talking to, he knows a man that took 2 deer to a different "custom slaughter shop", his total was almost $600, total for both. I can't see that for a deer.

But I'll tell you this real fast. Years ago, I butchered an Angus steer on the farm, it would have been 1,200 pounds or a little better? Home butchering is a lot different than hunting, I mean I could sit here at the house and check the 5-day forecast, and choose the day. I had help lined up, and everything ready, when the weather was good we went to work. I had a tractor with a front bucket, running water, a shed with meat hooks.

Here in town, I have a meat saw, grinder, meat cuber and all. I let it hang, 4 or 5 days, honestly it worked out good. Thinking about it now, I'm pretty sure Mom came over and helped wrap and label. Everyone left with some good cuts of beef, and other than my time, I didn't spend much.