I have an old chest freezer I bought just for the purpose of keeping elk quarters cold until I had time to process them. You could do the same with a couple of large ice chests. I don't trust anybody with cutting up my deer or elk. If you take it to a butcher you never know if you're really getting your meat back or somebody else's. I don't have a grinder so for that I like to save it up and take it in at a time when there is not a hunting season open and no other wild game being processed, or at least very little. For a few years we had a shop that would let us bring in our boned out meat for grinding at the end of the day, and he would grind it for us while we waited. Even 40 or 50 pounds would take no more than about 10 to 15 minutes. He'd only charge us $10 or so, and we'd just bring it home and wrap it. That shop ended up moving and changing owners and we can no longer have it done that way. Now it's a matter of dropping it off and picking it up later. I'd sure like to have my own grinder but a good one is about $300.
