Think of five two liter soda bottles stacked on top of each other.
no, I mean, whether that’s an accurate estimate or not
Oh! Uhhh yeah. It basically just has to be a frame that you hang the carcass from. So I’ve seen one as a set of poles and you just have to assemble it. It fits in a pretty small storage area all things considered.
Ah, that’s good to know. Never came across those in my infinitely long crafting list. 
Catching up on this: the leather tarp is easy to make and its description reads as if it should act as a butchering table when deployed - but it does not. The butchering rack just ignores its presence, even if it is directly adjacent.
So for now I’m just carrying a bit of lumber in the back of my DM. Mildly inconvenient, but I only need a couple big kills a year to keep me in tallow, so its not a big deal.
I’ve had it work with regularity, though admittedly the very first time I used one it didn’t work, but every time after, it did…
I tried three of four times in the most recent versions and got denied every time, so there’s presumably some fairly common bug there. I generally just set it up cardinally adjacent, but no luck.
is it the same with the other mat?
Maybe it only works with the rope tree? Seems like an oddity all the same.
Can you use anything else besides rope and tree? Would be nice and logical to be able to use the telescopic crane and similar.
If you have a butchery rack and possibly a rope that doesn’t seem necessary.
I don’t. Yet anyway. But I already have this perfectly good crane sitting here. Which I have to tote around to collect batteries and engines, due to the recent lift requirement changes. So why wouldn’t I use it?
Just tried it, nope my crane isn’t as good as a rope and a tree yet. 