How big a box for N deer
Hanging space is rail and height, not empty cubic feet. Whole deer want about 8 ft of headroom and roughly 2¼ ft of rail each so air can move around the carcass. Two animals jammed together is a freezer. A 4×4×8 will hang one; a typical 8×8×8 shed bay hangs about six whole with walking room. Quartered game needs less height and packs denser. Uncheck “size the box from the hang count” if you already have a trailer, shed, or room — the sheet then tells you whether that box is tight.
Warm animals are the load
A window AC on a temperature controller is sized from heat load, not floor area. Fresh carcasses are the point of this page: they arrive warm, and pulling them down in half a day is a much bigger hit than holding a box that is already in the mid-30s. Switch the mode to Hold and watch the carcass line drop to zero — that is the empty-box lie. Door openings on load-in dump outdoor air on top of that. Foam and shade cut the wall load; they do not cool 250 lb of warm deer.
What this sheet does not do
- Food safety. It will not tell you meat is safe, how long to hang, or what a health department wants. Those are not load-sheet questions.
- A brand of controller. You need a window AC and a controller that can hold the mid-30s. Shop the compatibility list on the unit you buy.
- A walk-in the size of a closet. If the box is under about 4×4×6, the usual window-AC chart does not apply and the AC may not even fit.
Assumptions
Planning estimate for a DIY game cooler, not an engineering design and not USDA or food-safety advice. Heat load is walls, door air, carcasses, and lights — the same math as the window AC size sheet. Nameplate BTU is that load divided by about 14% at the mid-30s (a window AC’s rating is measured at 80°F; the coil frosts when you pull it down). Hang counts assume air around each carcass, not packed meat. Target at or above outdoor air, or a nonsense box, will not invent an AC size. Check the AC maker before you buy. For other storage jobs see sheet 04. For foam layers see the takeoff; for house, generator, or solar see power.