Yarrow dreamer, apologies for not replying to your question, somehow I just spaced it out I guess.
With deer this is what I do most of the time.
Of course I eat the meat, I cut open the bones and cook them to make marrow broth. Can that in quart jars and use it for soup stock.
We also eat liver, kidneys, heart, tongue.
I save brains for tanning hides.
I save backstrap sinew for thread.
I save hooves which I sell.
Whitetail deer tails I sell to a guy who makes fishing flies and lures.
Antlers I use for various craft projects but I have amassed waaaay too many now so I’m probably gonna look for someone to sell them to.
Hides I tan or rawhide and sell.
I work for a meat cutter in the fall skinning and hauling his “waste”
I collect all the heads and take the brains for tanning and the antlers.
I also take home hundreds of lower legs and prepare the hooves which I sell.
And I get all the hides, which I tan and sell for my living.
Plus he pays me in cash and bags of various kinds of sausage, pepperoni, smokies, etc. I’m his taste tester when he tries a new recipe. He only works with wild meat so it’s all good stuff.
The hard tallow deer fat I hang up in a basket between two trees for the birds in the winter. All the birds that stay here for the winter come for it. They really like it and I have lots of that from fleshing hides. They also use the hair for nest building in the spring.
I compost the hair.
I’ve made some tools with the lower leg bones but mostly I put them out for the coyotes or burn them. The reason I burn them is that my place is already a magnet for all the carnivores and I don’t need to be any more of a lure than I already am. I live in bobcat, cougar and bear country. In the last twenty years we have had a good relationship. A few things to work out and a couple of face to face experiences but I’ve never killed one of them. I try to keep things good between us.