We're staying in Silverthorne for a pond hockey tournament and decided to drive to Fort Collins but ended up at Reliable Game Processing on the hunt for elk meat (see what I did there). We met Barb and she is an amazing person. Unfortunately we were not able to purchase elk meat, but Barb made the experience great. She has great stories to tell and is very informative. We will be visiting next year. read more

I've used Reliable for one elk and two deer. I've never been that impressed with their hospitality or treatment of customers. Several times I've had to knock on the door to their home, or have been seen but ignored. I recently used another processor closer to my elk hunt, and was amazed by the difference. Reliable doesn't have any real website for their wild game processing, or any forms to print out with what you want to order so you can have it ready when you get there. I was given the option to add fat back in, never told what kind of fat or how much it will be. I also wasn't given any option to have the meat hung prior to processing. All the meat was wrapped in butcher paper, no plastic and no chub wraps or vacuum sealing. They don't have any professional labeling. We had snack sticks made from a deer, so they were frozen when we picked them up. When we thawed them out, they were still soggy and never hardened like a snack stick should. I've never had this problem before. And by no means is their processing cheap, so maybe the lack of packaging would be okay. All the steaks we've ever had have been small and hacked off so each package has 3 or 4 tiny misshapen steaks, kind of a waste of an animal we worked so hard to harvest. One of the roasts had the bone left in (also never seen this before), so when we cooked it all the ligaments, fat and bone ruined the meat around it. I used reliable because it's the only processor in Fort Collins, the other one is farther away out of town. But from now on, I'll just make the drive out of town to Denver or somewhere else to get better service. Hunting is growing all over the country, and it's not just tough ranchers that hunt anymore. It's young women, people who live in the city and new hunters that aren't familiar with the processing world. Customer service and professionalism can go a long way. read more

Had elk processed mostly for ground meat and breakfast sausage. The ground meat was excellent and the sausage was just as good as Jimmy Dean's. The jerky and summer sausage samples were also very good. Their fat processing is the best, making a quality product to whatever it is added. Many years ago the sausage was somewhat grainy but new recipes and processes have made it great. Going back today. Mike D. read more

So I've always done my processing myself. Until I was a single dad with a toddler... I was very wary of using a processor from what other friends and hunters had told me.. But Reliable has been awesome the past 2 years I have used them. I highly recommend them if you don't have the time to diy. They treat your meat well and it is well worth your money. They have a lot of options for sausage and snack sticks. I really like the jalapeño and cheddar sticks but would give those and some roasts up for their awesome Italian sausage with fresh garlic! Their rates are reasonable and set. They will give you a quote and call you a week or so later. Plus if you want to see a awesome guy skin and quarter an antelope in less then 4 minutes it's worth the show. I take notes.. Thank you Reliable!! read more

Barb was a fantastic help on helping this Floridian understand wild game processing in Colorado. Very informal but amazingly informative, she shared stories of her own personal wild game harvesting, and gave insight into how the big game tag system works. I visit Colorado once a year, and am glad to have met Barb, so will for sure stop by every year to at least say, "Hello!" read more