Davis is the owner of Muley’s Ole Tyme Meat Market on State Road in Hillsdale, Mich. In addition to selling meat from a retail case, he does custom butchering for restaurants and hunters. Regular firearm deer hunting season runs from Nov. 15-30.
What will firearm deer hunting season mean for your business?
It will be quite a shot in the arm. [There are] a lot of people out there that hunt. A lot of them are unemployed and don’t have jobs. It’s a cheap way to get meat.
So say someone just went hunting, and they killed a deer and they bring it to you. Can you describe what this deer’s next few days will look like?
It comes in. It’ll either have the head on or off. We’ll skin it and hang it and wash it down and then get it ready to process. Then from there it gets boned out. Everything we do is totally boneless so they get all boneless steaks, butterfly chops, roast. Everything is boneless for a set price, which is probably cheaper than anybody in the county.
What do you do by hand, and what do you have machines for?
The deer gets all boned out and done by hand. The burger gets all ground up in a machine, and then we also have a stuffer. We mix the venison sausage and stuff it in the casings. From there it goes into the smoker for six to eight hours to get smoked and cooked.
What is it about the process that you enjoy?
There really ain’t a lot I enjoy about deer except that it’s really good money. And you know, you get to hear a lot of stories of how the people shot it and tracked it, and you get to see a lot of nice antlers and racks come through. I don’t like the deer, but I like the people.
-Compiled by Daniel Slonim
