Free: Contests & Raffles.
Do the leg bones really weigh that much? Seems to me the ease of carrying with the bone in is worth the extra 5 or 10 pounds per quarter.
Faster they cool the better regardless of temp. Late season, if I can get them in the truck whole in short order I will rush them home to bone unless we are more than a couple hours from the shop. Sort of a clean-vs-cooling dance. Early season don't even gut them. Dorsal skin and debone right there. Drop game bags of boned meat immediately in creek if one is close by. Used to worry about the water and bacteria but my old butcher said better cool and wet than hot and dry. Once they're hanging in the cooler the water will dry up quickly. Never had a poor tasting elk since we started doing things this way.That same butcher used to say that almost 50% of elk he received had some sort of bone sour when brought in just quartered. If temperatures were over 80 degrees the amount of loss from sour increased greatly. He said in 35 years of butchering elk he could count on one hand how many soured when boned out immediately. That was good enough for me. Plus, it makes one heck of a difference packing out. The wife and I can get a cow out in just three pack loads most of the time. That's leaving nothing, but a little neck meat behind. Two packs if I'm hunting with my buddy Channon. Big bulls usually take one more 25-30 pound pack on the wife and one more for me with horns, cape and back straps. She's a pack mule for a 5'2 squaw.
Interesting enough, I find it easier to carry and transport bone on, and I also think it cools better than a whole bag of meat hanging. I know I packe dmy moose out bone on, and they make an elk look like bambi. I'm a big guy though.
The only moose meat I lost was the one that accidentally fell into the lake/stream when I was trying to port my boat over the beaver dam and lost one quarter into the water. I think it got bacteria from the water. I have done a bear in a garbage bag, and immersed it into the water without it getting wet. Normally I wouldn't condone non breathing plastic, but in this case it seemed to work.