Deer hunters
in Pipestone County and elsewhere might have a difficult time finding someone to process their deer this fall as meat markets locally and beyond might not be taking them this year. Locally, neither D & T’s Meat Market in Pipestone or Buffalo Ridge Locker in Ruthton plan to process deer this season.
“We’re just too busy with beef and hogs,” said Trent Tinklenberg, manager at D & T’s Meat Market.
Barbara Keller, big game program leader for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said she has heard anecdotally that the same is true for other meat markets in Minnesota and elsewhere.
“I don’t think it’s just Minnesota that’s experiencing the problems,” she said.
Tinklenberg said D & T’s is booked out until at least May with cattle and around April with pigs. Typically, he said, they’re booked out about one or two months. Phil Schelhaas, owner of Buffalo Ridge Locker, said he’s booked with beef until May and with hogs until February. He said it’s not unusual to be booked out to February, but May is the furthest out he’s ever been booked.
Schelhaas said he’s been considering no longer processing deer for the last couple years for several reasons, including his age, the work it takes, difficulty finding help, the fact that deer season is a busy time of year, and an increase in the amount of beef and pork processing in recent years.
Schelhaas and Tinklenberg said that this year people bought more cattle and hogs directly from farmers due to the impact of COVID-19 on large meat processing plants and a fear of meat shortages and higher prices.
Local pork and beef industry representatives said some large processing plants being closed earlier this year and still not operating at 100 percent capacity as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has lead to a back up in the processing of beef and hogs.
As a result, Sylvia Wolters, public relations for Pipestone System, said pork producers started looking for alternative ways to move their animals in an effort to prevent them from going to waste. She said many producers started giving hogs away or selling them at input cost directly to consumers. Those consumers are then having the animals processed at their local meat markets, which she said has caused local meat markets all over the country to be booked out further than usual.
Angie Raatz, president of the Pipestone County Cattlemen’s Association, also said that consumers decided to buy whole or partial animals directly from farmers to stock up on meat because they were worried about potential meat shortages.
Wolters said it generally costs more to buy a whole hog than it does to purchase pork at the grocery store, but Raatz said consumers can buy beef for less directly from the producer due to the costs added by the large processing plants.
Both Raatz and Wolters commended the local meat markets for doing what they can to help the farmers during this time.
“They’re working their tails off,” Raatz said.
Schelhaas and Tinklenberg said their respective businesses have processed deer for decades. Tinklenberg said his father Ivan Tinklenberg has owned D & T’s for about 20 years and as far as he knows they’ve always processed deer before. He said he hopes that D & T’s can return to processing deer again next fall. Schelhaas said Buffalo Ridge Locker has processed deer for all of his 38 years in the business, but the business might not return to it unless his son Andy Schelhaas, who joined the business five years ago, decides to get back into it.
“It was a really tough decision,” Schelhaas said. “We really appreciated all the business.”
He said Buffalo Ridge Locker typically processed about 400 to 450 deer each year and that no longer processing deer would have some negative financial impact on his business. Tinklenberg said D & T’s typically processes around 200 to 300 deer a year and that he expects the increase in cattle and hogs to offset any impact from not processing deer this year.
Danny Evans, who has hunted deer locally for decades and typically took his deer to D & T’s for processing, said he still plans to hunt this deer season even if he has to find somewhere else to go for processing because he enjoys hunting and loves the meat.
“I’ll just have to do a little shopping around,” Evans said.
He said D & T’s has always done a quality job processing his deer meat and he hopes they will return to processing deer next year.
As for this year, Keller encouraged hunters to contact their regular processors now and closer to hunting season to see if they will be processing deer.
“If they’re not taking them, look for one that is or try to process it yourself,” she said.
Keller said processing a deer is doable on your own and suggested people look to YouTube for how-to videos.
As for the potential impact on the deer season, Keller said there are too many factors at play to say what, if any, effect a reduced availability of meat markets to process deer could have.
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Some meat markets, including locally, will not be processing deer this year - Pipestone County Star
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