Professionally processing wild game meat this time of year isn’t for the faint of heart. Expect long, hard days as hunters’ kills roll in, some butchers told Cowboy State Daily.

“It’s a grind. It’s early morning, late nights, sometimes going six or seven days a week,” said Nick Schmidt, a butcher at Wapiti Valley Meats in Wapiti.

Cody Lightfoot, the owner of Yellowstone Game Processing in Bozeman, Montana, said his business has the capacity to handle about 200 to 300 game carcasses at a time.

“We’ve been full since the Tuesday after the hunting season opener, and we have people on our waiting list,” he said.

Despite the hard work, Peyton Koehler, the owner of Wild Country Processing in Gillette, said that making hunters happy makes him happy.

“It’s not a glorious job, but you have peo

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