My 60th birthday present is in 2 years and its a New Mexico elk hunt, Me and a buddy are talking about flying out one way and having a rental to drive back with the meat. Thinking of buying coolers at a local Wal Mart and icing the meat down for the return trip home. 2 day drive but the cost of shipping that much meat home would almost exceed the whole trip cost. How much cooler space would a average cow elk take. They have a processor on site so it would be packaged. They say average cow elk live weight is 750LBS

Kodiak should know. Shoot him a PM

Dry ice will do it

I would think elk will be similar to whitetails in that you should expect 30-35% of live weight in a boned-out product. Allow for packaging bulk and dimensions.

I’d love to see some of these average 750lb cow elk. 500lb would be much more realistic with 175-200lb of deboned meat.

Buy a chest freezer out there and a harbor freight generator, then rent a trailer and drive the meat home in the freezer. Sell the freezer when you get back. Sell the generator.

You can get a whole boned out elk in a 150 qt with dry ice, but it's tight. Not sure about processed and packaged.

We use three cheap 48 quart coolers from Walmart and regular ice. Works great for elk and mule deer.

I have never gotten more than about 38%-40% yield on a perfectly shot animal, but I guess it could be possible.

750 lbs live weight is a bit of an optimistic goal. Most mature cows are between 375 and 600 lbs. There could always be outliers, but it wouldn't be common.

At 600 lbs live weight, I would think you would need to transport about 200 lbs of meat. Assuming it was frozen when you started home, 1-2 of the 120 quart Coleman coolers from wally world would suffice, with 5-10 lbs of dry ice in each.

As mentioned above, if you had a U-Haul with a medium sized freezer in it, plugged in for a day or two before you start home, the meat would still be frozen solid when you get home. If you could plug in overnight while at a motel, even better.

Home Depot currently lists a 16 cubic foot freezer for $598. 2 of the 120 quart Coleman coolers would be $240, and hold about half what the freezer would hold.

This is how I moved all my venison back home from Texas, using a utility trailer and a freezer. Sold the freezer when I got home for exactly what I paid for it.

rent a truck that has a ac plug in the bed . lol

We have them here, but roosevelts are larger than rocky mountain elk. We've had a few older cows over 650#. 500-600 is common on mature cows

I'd price the airlines and do the math. I bet an xtra $200 each for 2 people would do it. If not the rental, meals, fuel and time would probably be close to that or not far off