Picking up my beef !!

Ok I am still just scratching my head at why people keep paying the outrageous beef prices. I will pick up my second beef in 10 months in the morning. It weighed 1246 lbs on the hoof . I'm getting around 537 lbs of beef. T bones, ribeyes, sirloins, round steak, roast , and burger. My cost is 1,640 bucks. That comes out to about 3.01per lb. THATS steaks everything. I looked at Kroger this evening and ribeyes were 16.99 lb. T bones 13.99 burger is 4.99 a lb !!!! My cost is with them furnishing the steer . All I do is show up with the money !!!!! I placed my order mid August of 2020...
I'll give final count on number of steaks I end up with . Last one the sirloins were as big as a hub cap and I never cared too much for that cut. But my son was taking one home every visit so I cooked the last one MMMMM Dang good.
First one I ordered back in April when the meat shortage hit. It took 5 weeks to get it from time I ordered .
Also this butcher sells a 300 lb hog for 350 bucks. !!
Chicken quarters for 50 cents a lb .
Same guys butcher all my deer. Yes they are amish .

This is on sale LOL 6.26 lbs

Its a crazy World

Good way to buy meat. We ground and wrapped 50 packages of venison burger yesterday as we are almost out of beef hamburger from the last 1/4 we purchased.

Chris

Good deal on the beef
Congratulations

Are they willing to dry age it for you? If they are and you let them hang one for a while you will prolly spaz out b/c it is a lot better. If they make me pay a little upcharge for hangin it past 14 days I gladly do it every time.

We rarely buy beef since moose, caribou, and bison are plentiful up here, but we did buy half a beef last spring. Cost us $1700 total for HALF a beef!

That is crazy. And reminds me I have to go knock down a moose yet this winter. I cant remember the last time I ate beef.

Because it seems cheaper to buy spend a few bucks at a time then to drop a good lol bit for a long period of time.

My family raises beef cattle and it boggles my mind to this day why we don't just take one or two of them to the butcher every year and just eat offa that .

Wolfdog, don't forget to feed corn before you butcher. I know grass fed is the new in thing but venison is for when your in the mood for lean meat. Beef and hogs need corn.

Walmart here has leg quarters for 60 cents a pound. You can't raise chickens that cheaply. Come in 10 pound bags. We put meal sized portions in vacuum bags and freeze. Bags probably add a nickel a pound to the cost.

There's a reason why walmart chicken is that cheap. No thanks, I know what I'm getting with my home raised meat birds.

its because chicken breast can be sold much higher. more demand. i dont like chicken breast. to dry

Because if you actually do the math, it makes more sense to just buy the specific cuts you want then to buy the entire beef. Most cattlemen I know don’t even butcher their own, its not worth the cost to feed one. I do my own because I like to butcher, but even with no processing costs it still doesn’t pencil out. And I’ll only consider butchering one that I know I’ll take a beating on at the sale. Any good steer goes to the sale.
And we eat a lot of roasts, most people don’t need near as many as comes from a whole beef. Same for burger, its way more than most people want. Makes better financial sense to buy steaks when you want them.

P.S. Crit R Dun, I've been to many many commercial chicken processing plants and barns and feed mills. I do like the eggs my daughter and her husband collect from their free ranging birds. When you feed your meat birds feed from a bag, they are no different than what Tyson is butchering.

This is exactly right. I’ve raised them too and they taste no different. Only difference is they cost about 3x as much.

M Magis, I dont get all the roasts. I have them steak out the shoulders (chuck) and the premium steaks. Whole brisket. A few eye of round roasts. The rest gets ground including heart and tongue. Lean burger is at 4-5 bucks a pound.

I wish veal was still popular. I really like calf liver. Haven't seen any for sale in a long while. Used to be cheap and available at any store that sold meat.

Storage is the other big issue. Even if it penciled out, not many people want to give up that much freezer space. Mine last year took up 90% of my old 25 sf chest freezer.

Ground corn and oat finished beef. Filled two freezers with our 1500+ fat steer. Been eating steaks for all three meals different days. I prefer cast iron skillet, large pad of butter, high heat, shake of Tony Cacheres creole seasoning on each side, and 3 minutes per side. Let sit a minute or two and devour. I traded a steer calf in on the deal and I think we have just under $2/lb on our finished beef. I paid the finisher $1.10 live weight and traded my calf in for $750. My wife wanted everything, so we hauled home the organs and even all the beef fat.

Yes storage is not cheap. But just the high cost of burger will pencil out the cost of electricity. to many people have to have profit from the grocery store beef.

The guy selling calves, the trucker hauling calves to the feed lot. the feedlot, the trucker hauling commodities to the feed lot, the trucker hauling fat cattle to the processer, the processer, the trucker hauling beef to the distribution center, the distribution center, the trucker hauling groceries to the retail outlet, and finally the retail outlet.

Electricity and a freezer is still cheaper than all that. At least I think it is.

I am not sure how you are paying 1.32$ per pound hanging weight, which includes processing! Around hear your going to be paying around 4$ minimum hanging weight with processing fees separate.

Thats way above market value. I believe the market value on a fat beef is around $1.88 hanging

They must be buying some awefully cheap fat cattle to make that price.

No room for beef when the freezers are all full of 3 dollar beaver hides!

The place i buy bulk meats Restaurant Depot i can get chicken leg Qtrs. for 34cents a lb. 40 lb. case

I sell mine as cheap as I can and still make a little over what a 600# calf would have sold for and 120 days of feed. I sold 3 for $1.20 and kept one for my self. They were heifers and weighed 1050#,they were not my best black angus calves. They were good calves but ones that had a white spot or a short tail that calf buyer would have paid less for. Meat will be about 50% the way I have it cut. Processing is close to $400. total cost 1.2x1050=1260+400=1660 pounds of meat 1050x.50=525
1660/525=3.16/# I think I'm selling cheaper than most but selling to friends and family. Fat cattle were 1.12 to 1.15 so I went above that some. Lots of local producers sell at $1.50 to 1.65/# live weight.

Will pick mine up next week.

Bought a steer from buddy who does it for a living, less than 3 per lb and super quality. Only way to go.

In Wyo. you go over and eat at the nieghbors to see what your beef tastes like!

When I trapped around many chicken houses in Arkansas I got to know a chicken farmer quite well. He taught me a couple a things about raising chicks to broiler size birds.

Like how they put on their weight so fast. It just wasnt from feeding plain mash, grain feed and water. I was told they added arsenic to their feed to increase their growth rate in a shorter period of time. This wasn't done by the farmer but was pre mixed into the feed when brought and put into the feed hoppers.

This may be common knowledge to those in the chicken business but I was a bit concerned when told. I laid off buying Tyson and Wayne Foods chicken after that.

Chickens are not fed arsenic and never have been. He was mistaken, but he wasn't lying. Arsenic is natural and organic and other foods can convert into minute amounts of arsenic when eaten.

https://www.chickencheck.in/faq/arsenic-chicken/

this is correct.

No he was not mistaken, and shared that info on several occasions as reference to fast growth. I know the facts from that time frame of when I was working the chicken farms and surrounding areas for predator control.

This was during the 90's to early 2000's. Things may have changed from those years but it did occur and was common practice in those years. Organic or not, aresenic is still arsenic. It was a growth stimulator. It was used and labeled as a feed medicine but used none the less.

On the surface it may appear that way. But take mine for example yes I feed a commercial feed but there is much more to it than that. Conditions being primary.

My meat birds stay in a wood frame enclosed for predator protection. The bottom is open as are 2/3rods the top and sides that have chicken wire. It gets moved once or twice a day on to fresh grass. Once when they are small twice as they grow out. They get sun and open air, catch bugs and get to scratch and eat grass along with their feed. They don't sit in their own filth and have to be medicated because of the airborne poo particle they are breathing in causing micro abrasions in their lungs.

They are healthier and they for taste better. Its apparent if you cook one of mine and a store bought bird. The broth from the store bird will have a gray tinted appearance not noticeable until directly with one of my birds.

My egg birds get moved around the farm with the goats and sheep. Their coup is built on a 16' car trailer and stays inside the electro net fence the goats and sheep stay in. They also get commercial feed with some added sunflower seeds. But they free range inside the rotational grazing fence and eat lots of bugs and vegetation.

I have a lot of customers that agree and pay $5lb.and 4.50 dozen eggs And pick them up from the farm.

I guess if someone is raising them in the traditional poop filled mud runs you may be correct on there not being much different.

It gets worse Bob Jameson. During the same time frame I used to day wage for anybody that more than a few thousand head of cattle and paid cash up in Kansas. One guy kept getting in pot load after pot load of cattle from Missouri (Misery) and they always stunk like the trucker hadn't washed his trailer in weeks.

One day I ask one of the truckers where those stinkin suckers were coming from and he said down the road from the turkey and chicken yards (big corporate farms- actually more like huge or yuge as they say). He said they feed the back ground calves a mixture that included the bird droppings.

Most of those cattle ended up sellin to National Beef and were then marketed under their certified black angus label.

Again, yes he was. As are you I suppose. They have never been fed arsenic. You can read the link I provided, or you can Google for your own results. They will all tell you the same thing. This is how people become so ignorant regarding their food, they believe anything they're told or see on the internet. Now this is one more time this false information has been put on on the web, for millions of people to find.

Just to re-affirm my dominance, I want everyone to know I can pee pee farther than Bob Jameson of M. Magnus either one

I am sure if the internet says different he must have been lying to me. I am sure Google wouldnt publish non factual information. Really?? I knew these operators personally and saw the feed analysis provided with their required feeds paperwork at the time.


"Quote" Google

Even though science shows that such low levels of arsenic do not harm chickens or the people eating them, feed containing 3-Nitro roxarsone (arsenic) was removed from the market in June of 2011 and it is no longer used in raising broilers in the United States.

I wonder why this feed/medication was pulled from use. Which means it was widely accepted and used during the time frame I discussed.

I remember my boy doing a trajectory test one morning. He aimed high on the wall...did better than I could have. I didn't stay mad long, kind of admired his gumption.

Some people get it, others don't or choose not to. Just like home grown meat birds costing 3 times what their styrofoam chicken costs.

Of course Magis ANYTHING I do is wrong. BUT you are smoking dope. I just un loaded my beef 573 lbs total 1642.28 bucks total. I had 19 packs of ribeye 1/2 thick and 2 per pack. 15 T-bone packed 2 per pack 1 in cut. Plus tons of burger and roast . steaks galore. The rib eye and t- bones alone would cost more than what I paid for the ENTIRE beef if I bought it at the grocery store. !!!

Yeah I couldn't understand his math either

Such a great joke and so few who have the first clue what you are talkin about.

Ever read the book about the Cracker Cowboys down in Florida in the 1880's? Not that they knew how to write up a resume, but if they did brand doctorin' would have been at the top of their skill set section and eatin' everyone else's beef while drivin' my own (and 3 of yours) to market would have been 2nd or 3rd on the same list

Very few reasons to pat yer own back more satisfyin than knownin deep down in your heart that you raised you kid right. Hat's off to ya Mister Posco aka father of the year.

When I was selling Hogs,,I sold for $1 a pound hanging.That did not include cut,,wrap,,smoking or any of that stuff.That was quite a few years ago.

Did that $1,640 include cutting and wrapping?

On the surface it may appear that way. But take mine for example yes I feed a commercial feed but there is much more to it than that. Conditions being primary.

My meat birds stay in a wood frame enclosed for predator protection. The bottom is open as are 2/3rods the top and sides that have chicken wire. It gets moved once or twice a day on to fresh grass. Once when they are small twice as they grow out. They get sun and open air, catch bugs and get to scratch and eat grass along with their feed. They don't sit in their own filth and have to be medicated because of the airborne poo particle they are breathing in causing micro abrasions in their lungs.

They are healthier and they for taste better. Its apparent if you cook one of mine and a store bought bird. The broth from the store bird will have a gray tinted appearance not noticeable until directly with one of my birds.

My egg birds get moved around the farm with the goats and sheep. Their coup is built on a 16' car trailer and stays inside the electro net fence the goats and sheep stay in. They also get commercial feed with some added sunflower seeds. But they free range inside the rotational grazing fence and eat lots of bugs and vegetation.

I have a lot of customers that agree and pay $5lb.and 4.50 dozen eggs And pick them up from the farm.

I guess if someone is raising them in the traditional poop filled mud runs you may be correct on there not being much different. [/quote]

Some people get it, others don't or choose not to. Just like home grown meat birds costing 3 times what their styrofoam chicken costs. [/quote]

Exactly people make a special trip and drive all the way out to my farm and pay $25 per bird average when they can get a cooked bird ready to eat from the store for $8. And pay 4.50 for my eggs instead of .98c. Because there is no difference.

As a kid I never understood my grandfather going on about those farm eggs. To me eggs were eggs. Then after eating nothing but my own farm eggs for 2 years I ordered a t bone and 6 eggs for breakfast at a restaurant one morning. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with those tasteless washed out eggs.(I'm slow at times) a month or so later our hens had slowed down being winter and my wife bought some brown eggs from the store. Again the yokes were pail the eggs spread out all over the pan and they had no taste. I put 2 &2 together after that. A sickly chicken lays a sickly egg.

I buy all my beef from a local farmer who raises angus. That way I feel like I pretty well know what I'm getting.

Big fat T-Bone steaks tonight for supper.Paid $3.99 lb.

You have to work the sales here to get good cuts at a reasonable price if your buying it from grocery stores. Another decent option is the bulk AAA from Costco and do a bit of processing, such as a full strip loin into steaks.

Raised beef for many years when I was a kid. Dad always had a dozen or so white face and angus. We penned them up in the barn for about 10 days as I remember and corn fed and supplemented with horse and mule molasses feed. Very little hay as I remember.

With goodies like the shelled corn and molasses feed, that hay seemed to take second fiddle as I can't blame them.
,
Like Danny says grass fed heffers and such pastured beef may be the liberal cheap green way to go in these times. However you can't beat that fat marbling in your steaks and roasts. Also the hanging beef aging was standard procedure back in my young days with our old slaughter house butcher. The old butcher taught me how to make a football from a steer bladder once. Good old days they were.

I work the sales,,plus buy the bulk of my stuff right from the meat locker.He sells to me for the same price he charges the restaurants that he services.Just got a whole case of boneless pork loins(60 lbs.) for $1.49 lb.I cut and vacume pack myself.I get most of my stakes there also.

Our meat must be better priced here. This market has quarterly specials on T-bones for $3.69 and Porterhouse for $3.99. All meat comes to the market in halves, fresh, and can be custom cut at no extra price. This week ground beef $2.48, Demonicos $6.48, and Filet Mignon $8.98. I go there every month or so and buy a couple hundred dollars worth for my kids and their familie

Yes Here's the text and the pics of the steaks ,

Pork is whole different ball game pork tenderloins are on sale here for 99 cents a lb every other week.

I like vacumn seal better. 10 minutes in hot water in sink and ready to grill

just picked up mine,185 lbs hanging weight,at 2.60 lb. 481.00 for the beef(brother in law).cut n wrap 171.40 so total is 652.40 divided by 185 lbs comes to 3.53 lb across the board steaks an all this was for a quarter beef

You must really got a big beef. I have one 10 cu ft freezer and one 7 ft. It held entire 530 plus lbs of meat PLUS I have 6 whole chicken frozen , 4 gallon Ice, (grandbabies) and tons of pork I vacumn sealed. Plus left the 3 beavers in the bottom I want to tan. Tons of fries and pies And one 80 lb doe ground and packaged.. BUT don't ask to put any more in LOL..

Yea it's lot better Guys keep posting they got 399 lb t bones and thing I'm glad for them but around here beef is outrageous. IGA, Kroger, Walmart don't matter all higher than what we paid.

I picked up a half Saturday @ 3.15 cut wrapped and froze per lb.

I thought this was a good deal. My buddy serves a lot of his own beef to his family so i trust his finishing and butchering process. He's very particular on finishing. Anyway he charges $2.90 hanging weight if you help wrap. Cant remember his full service price. If we didn't do well on deer, id take him up on it.

I vac seal my stuff too.

That cheap beef may be coming from Brazil or Argentina. Without the label of origin that is fought against so hard there's no way of knowing where store bought beef is coming from.

Argentine beef has been in our market since I sold beef in the Early 1980's. I worked for a few years for Wilson meat company in sales for summer work while in college. Learned alot about the beef and pork industry. Like all business's in general its all $$$ driven for profits.

when dairy cows get bad feet at 2-3 years old from never getting off concrete, they dont get hauled to the dump

Unless it says choice odds are your getting a milk cow.

Oh heck no Danny. Hormel Chili and Banquet TV dinners need some kinda junk that slightly resembles beef for every package.


Rat & Danny both, the downer 'stiens look like US Prime compared to cancer eyed horned Herefords that u can smell from 2 hills back

Don't believe me? Watch what they load on a Speedway truck after a sale is over.

just got a half of beef at the local locker. paid 2.98 per lb processing included. 2.37 per lb hanging weight and .061 for processing.

Easy now, don't be dissing those TV dinners, pretty hard to beat those swanson hungry man gourmet dinners.

Hardgraves potted meat chocked full of peckers and lips for over 75 years . Says it on the label ...

What no spam or bologna to fry up in the frozen tundra? Yall are missin out

Left lane where you been? THe frozen tundra thawed out !!!

Oh Christ not you too! Al Gore and his man made global warmin was enough for me LOL

My old shooting buddy's family had a packing house. Some of the junk he would buy makes them dairy cows look good. I learned a lot from listening to him talk cattle when at the house. Them old cows that are all bone and hardly move anymore go to the canner market, like hormel and dentymoore. The ones that still have some flesh are McDonald's bound. Kind of eye opening to hear what meat goes into some contracts. Can't say much though, I have eaten a lot of down cattle in my life. Folks around know I butcher so when something falls through ice, breaks a leg, or prolapses I get a call. Most times the salvage is just burger, but every once in a while I get one worthy of cutting steaks.

Andrew have I told ya about my last couple downers out in the far pastures? If ya ever wanna save a trip to fetch a tractor with a loader try the gutless quarterin like the Alaskans do with a moose out in the bush.

My neighbor offered to get the tractor but we was way out when we ran onto a super nice hfr who had gotten entirly too much protien her 3rd tri-semester. It would have been an hour round trip and dark was commin. so instead I conned him into partnerin with me on the gutless quarter deal and we was loaded up and headed back in about 30 mins.

Best of all, we were covered in blood buy not even one little globe of poop was on us.

I never thought of doing it that way LL. I like hanging mine in the cooler for a couple of weeks even if they are just grinders, so not sure how the field quartering would work out for me. I do know bailing wire and a do ez bail bed will haul one out in a pinch though.

Yeah well these Texans are even worse than the Okies down in wheat pasture country. The more cattle they run the more pride they take in basically havin no equipment at all. A good Du Eze or Winkler Mgfr bed is same as unheard of they wanna run a few hunnerd head of momma cows with a Kawasaki mule. It is pitiful

What happened to the 75 pounds of marble fat and the kidneys from that butchering job ?

Remember that the chicken dung goes back into DPM and mixed with the feed. 50% of the protein is absorbed the second time around and only 10% the first time.
If this was not done then north Carolina would have been risen 20 feet in elevation in DPM.

weve tried selling ours for less than that and get very few takers. most only want a few packs or pounds at a time. so now we butcher the whole steer and the inlaws sometimes help so they get some. luckily we eat a lot of beef

Just made 25 lbs of ring bologana.Had 12 1/2 pounds of ground bottom round and 12 1/2 pounds of trimmed pork loin. Try to get THAT bologna at the store. No beef lips and pig snouts in the stuff I make.

I know that's a lot of meat but we GIVE lots to needy families. I took 8 rolls of burger to 2 different house of really poor houses with kids. Actually stopped at one before I got home with it.

I have only worked on one cow on the ground in a pasture.

Was deer hunting with my daughters son. We were on his grandads place from his father's side. Seen a big red heifer. She went about 900 I guess. Grandad had been trying to catch her for awhile. She was on a neighbors place. Called and told him we found her and he wanted us to shoot her. There was no talking him out of it. He figured she was going to hit out on the road some night and he would be sued. Said he was leaving work and heading that way. Its an hour drive. So we shot her and I gutted her like you would an elk or any other large animal. A job made lots easier when there is two people. Had an axe in my pickup to break the pelvic bone. By the time grampa got there we had been done for awhile. Grampa got a skid steer with a front end loader over to her and some chain. Picked her up by the back feet and brought her home.

It was a good opportunity to teach my grandson how to gut a big animal on the ground. Didnt get to quartering with a hand saw, on the ground, but he has butchered enough stuff I am sure he could get it done.

I butcher quiet a few moose laying on the ground. The best way is take off the two legs,( we do it with the hide on, keeps the meat clean) and put directly in game bags.
Then remove the ribs, exposing the guts and its easy to cut the diaphragm, and throat, and roll the guts out.

Two guys can then flip it over on a tarp and do the same thing remove the legs,(not quarters ) then ribs, then saw through the backbone and neck and your done.

In this intentional politically uncorrect household taking something out of the freezer is "un-thawing" it. Kinda like a hot water heater.

What did we ever do before we had them . I just inherited dads 98 ram 3500 with a deweze bed i find new things to do with it eveeyday . I havnt tried power skinning a coyote with it yet . I bet it would work slick . The bale lift opens wide enogh to clear the sides of the truck

Well done. That's the way to do it! We normally do two weaners a year for a family of four.
I just shot and butchered another one the other day and I do everything else from tanning the hide to tying the fancy roasts, we breed our own and honestly cost me a single 30-30 shell, about 20 bucks worth of cryovac plastic and maybe 2 bucks worth of chlorine, oh and $50 for the chrome tan solution online but I had to borrow another freezer as we had more venison still here than I thought, that cost me $10 in fuel to pick up and I will give him some ribs and eye fillet for being such a good dude for the freezer loan.
Just thinking of nitrate free and chemical free meat is enough to keep me doing this until I'm too old to do it.
I made sure to label everything properly this time, my kids don't get excited about mystery meat as much as I do.

I usually keep and finish about 10 calves a year. I wean and sell my calves in late October early November and keep the late calves that are a little bit lighter and don’t fit with the rest that are going to the sale barn. I put them on hay and pasture for about 9 months and the finish them on corn/oats for 90 days. They will be weighing around 1000 to 1100 by the following November and I sell them to friends and family for $2.75 per lb carcass weight and they pay for the processing. Total cost to my customers is around $1100 for a half beef and they end up with about 200lbs of wrapped meat.

Right now we have a jersey/angus calf in the freezer that we left on the cow for 10 months. Probably weight 750 when we butchered it but was FAT. The fat was a yellow color not white like most beef fat. Father in law has a walk in meat cooler, meat band saw and big grinder so we did everything ourselves. It is some of the tastiest and most tender beef I’ve ever had!




Wife and son hard at work!

I remember an ol German butcher up at St Joe Misery talkin about milk fat meet years ago. I'd almost forgotten about it until I looked in on this post

My dad used to call them jersey stiers yellerhammer stiers because of that yellow fat that jerseys have .

Dang they look like brother and sister. They look a lot a like. Plus you sure got some great looking meat there..