Donating Deer Through Hunters and Farmers

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Ohio designates the week following Thanksgiving as the annual deer gun hunting season.

Many hunters who harvest a deer, take their prize to be butchered into the cuisine of their choice but some hunters donate their venison to help feed the less fortunate.

“And we also… that guy that doesn’t want his deer but they shot one. We have the Hunters and Farmers program, which is really a unique program that we are a part of. Basically, all you have to have is a legally tagged deer that have been field dressed. Bring it to us. We fill out the paperwork and that’s all they need to do. And this deer will be processed into burger and 99 percent of it goes to Christ’s Table,” Phillips Processing Owner Dale Phillips said.

Phillips is one of a few local processors that work with local hunters to custom prepare their venison to order and they anticipate processing between 400-and-500 deer this week.

“We have a system here,” Phillips said. “You come in and fill out what we call a recipe on how you want your deer cut up. Then it goes around back, gets hung up, goes into the skinning room where we skin the deer out and then they’re washed and checked out there. Hung in the cooler and then they come over on the processing side and we cut them up according to the order and then they go right to the freezer.”

Phillips processes many kinds of meat from the venison, such as: bacon, steaks, lunch meats, trail bologna and sausages. But if you enjoy the hunt more than the venison, you can always donate your deer to the Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry program.