Going rate for beef.

Just paid for my annual half beef. 384# hanging weight was $1036.00. Another $325 for processing, I'm guessing. If it is anything close to the quality of the last one, I will be a happy camper!

Hang weight here is 2.75lb and processing another 1.50lb ish

We have usually bought at least a hindquarters.
I was going to buy 2 hindquarters, but it became absurdly expensive.
I understand that everything has a price tag, and I don’t begrudge a farmer making a profit.
But there were charges for transportation, slaughter, hanging weight, cutting, vacuum seal, and cooler/freezer.
I have never incurred charges stacked like that.
The price per pound was going to be ridiculous.

There is a local supermarket that has very good prices for beef. I bought 50# of T bones and Porterhouse steaks for $3.99 a pound last month. Cut fresh to your order in the store.

North Central WI, we charge $4:10 a lb hanging we pay processing. If you don't like it we buy it back. Never got any back.

I paid 2.30lb hanging wt and .69lb processing fee for black angus and I picked the animal out that I wanted.

I think I will go hug a moose.

Cost me that much to have quartered deer boned and ground, plus some cubed steak.

3.50 a poundl hanging weight here , plus processing.

Its a wonder theres a deer left alive in the state.

Paid the same as hound for the same type of beef... processing was .70 something a pound

Every family in this town, and every town withing 500 miles of here processes their own moose in their kitchen.

You all should be deeply ashamed of yourselves.

We're not as smart as you are! LOL!

less than 3.50 here hanging weight includes processing. ( i dont remember the exact number) or it did a few months ago when i bought one

I never paid for deer processing. i dont remember the first time i helped butcher an animal i was so young. uncle had the butcher set up. he is dead now. cousins got his stuff. he was set up to hang and age. had a commercial meat band saw and a grinder.

i could do a beef if i needed to, boning it out, but honestly for what you get i dont mind paying for processing.

After paying hanging weight, what % do you lose in bone?

Ive often said if a person wants to eat meat, they should be required to kill the animal and help process it. It would be appreciated much more and not taken for granted.

you lose about 30% gary. Assuming you want some steaks and roasts to be bone in. A lot of that 30% is water. The meat dries up a bit during aging

Went in on a half with a friend 5 dollars dressed and 1 dollar pound for processing canadian. Our hamburger is 8.oo a pound in the store here .T bones and prime rib roast around 18..oo

I'm just over here eating a cull cow I did myself, probably around a buck a pound into it.

I will say, if it was only about the money, I could buy it in bulk from Sam's club for less money. However, the beef I am getting would grade prime every day of the week. They also vacuum seal everything but the burger in very heavy plastic. I had no vacuum bag failures on any of the last half of beef after a year of being banged around in the freezer. In the end, it's probably a wash as far as price goes, if I have to package meat from Sam's or purchase the half from my cousin. There is no comparison in quality, however! For the record, I have never taken any wild game to a meat processor. I figure, if I can skin a few thousand animals a year, processing a couple deer is a piece of cake.

While I agree with you we all don't live where it will stay cold enough to leave it hang outside. So I'm planning I n a walk in cooler or refrigated trailer. But that's a bit of money I have not set a side for it yet.

We get $4/ pound hanging weight, customers pay butcher and processing fees, it’s not a get rice quick scheme, but it’s a good way to spend your kids inheritance.

Here most people take the price from the USDA dressed price average which is what packers are paying for beef then the last I heard it was 2500 to get an entire beef done with minimal grinding, we do our own so I don’t have first hand knowledge of a price on the processing.

$5/lb in the freezer

USDA prime beef on the hoof, 1400 lbs. @1.65= $2310.00, will hang 900lbs and will cut and wrap 625 lbs to the freezer. Total wholesale cost with processing is 3000.00 or $4.80. a lb.

Further you are from western KS, OK and TX panhandles the more it will cost. The beef you buy at your local retail outlet is being fed out and processed in that part of the world. You buy from a local producer in NY the cost in feed is twice as much and so the beef cost is higher. All those beef cattle you see east of the Mississippi, west of the divide, north of I80 and south of I40, are cow calf business. ( a few exceptions but very few) They sell calves that are trucked to western KS, OK and TX panhandles to get fed out and slaughtered. Weather plays a big part in gain per pound of feed. Not only good weather but grain, pastures and hay production in that part of the world are conducive to profitable feedlot operations

That would be $2.60 on the hoof, I could get rich on that.

For four years now we’ve raised finish beef to sell, just a small operation. This year we have 22 beef in the pasture feedlot. We are asking $4.75 for a half, and $4.25 a pound for a whole, Based on hanging weight. Plus $165 harvest fee for a whole. And the butcher is $1.10 a pound per hanging weight for a cut and wrap.

This year our hay, and grain prices have nearly doubled from last year. I also have a lot of fuel (Diesel is $6 gallon). And we have tons of time into the operation!! I honestly would be hesitant to calculate how much per hour we make…

The beef is pasture raised, all natural. And finished on a barley oat corn pellet for the last 120 to 150 days. The quality of the meat is excellent! Customers always come back.

I can’t agree with this more: it is NOT they get rich quick scheme, but it’s a great way to spend your kids inheritance!!!

Looks good on paper, good luck,lol

Gary I talked with a butcher on this here's what he said:
Most calves dress around 55 percent some a little better some a little less, then from there the package meat is 60/40 60 being packaged I've also done the math on a few and it's real close to that, best I've seen one dress is 58 percent worst was 52...

Live Weight is how much the cow, pig or lamb weighs when it’s alive, on the hoof.

Hanging Weight is a weight the butcher gives us after the animal has been killed, blood drained, head, hide, feet, entrails & organs removed. The hanging weight is usually about 60% of the live weight. So if a cow weighs 1000 lbs live weight its hanging weight will be 600 lbs.


Packaged weight is what goes in the freezer. 65-70% of hanging weight IF you get some cuts bone in.

Nate you need an honest butcher

Fat cattle, live weight right now is about a 1.53 a pound. https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/live-cattle-price

So live animal ready to slaughter at 1200 pounds should bring about 1836 bucks. 60% of 1200 pounds is 720. 720 X 3.50 is 2520 bucks. So if the producer gets 2100 for the animal, the butcher gets 420 to process it, then you end up buying about 468 pounds of packaged meat for 5 dollars and 40 cents a pound. you get aged beef and not walmart mystery meat. Hamburger steak and roasts. Cheaper than buying the same cuts and burger at any retail outlet.

So you save money, the producer makes a little more and the processor makes an honest profit. Everybody wins. Only way to buy beef IMO

Well out here there is a outfit selling butchered in the box whole beef 5.70lb,half beef5.90 ,quarter beef 6.25 that is grass fed cattle no grain finish.

Oh, heck..



There's a guy down at the strip mall selling 40 ribeyes for $20



Plus shrimps, lobsters, and crab legs.

Look up H bar k beef

Danny,
Like I said looks good on paper, take one yourself and do the math. I can tell you very few calves on the farm will dress 60 percent. Each is individual, paper is a guide line and a very poor one, I would never buy a 1000 lb.calf and just pay hanging weight price without weighing it.

I have two more deer tags, that's all I have to say about it.

I looked up hamburger on Walmarts website. For 93% lean its 5.56 a pound in Ottawa KS. If you get beef processed at a local shop your hamburger should be lean like that. Just enough fat to stick it together good rather than a skillet full of grease like you get with the cheap stuff.

If you have a small shed you can put in a window ac unit and keep it pretty cool, don't have to get to fancy unless you want to.

Donner just last night some new customers came out and bought a couple chickens
The guy was telling me about a valve or something you can put on a window unit and get them to run down to 34° I don't know if that accurate but I think in the 40s would be cold enough.

I could never justify the time and expense for a cooler just fore the 4 to 10 deer the boys shoot a year. But with my wife's CSA's and cut flowers sales it would be used for more Than just deer add in butchering cows and it makes financial since. I definitely need to look into budget options..

We've just used an old window unit that didn't have a thermostat, turn it all the way cold and it kept a small garage plenty cold.

I'm planning on building a hanging shed, built into the side of a hill out of concrete blocks and one window for an ac unit, I should be around $1,000 into it if I do it myself and scrounge a few materials.

You would need to install a heating device to cycle on//off and shut the AC off/on to keep the coils from freezing up, if you want it to freeze it should cool to 40 - 45 other wise.

Makes sense, I suppose that's what the "cool bot" cabelas sells does.

All of walmarts hamburger has fat added to it. It starts out as cull cow burger at about 1oo% lean and then adds fat trimmings to get it to stick together and add flavor.
With real burger from a well finished beef there will be as much grease as if you just fried bacon.

40 to 45 would do very well for the purposes I think?

Serious question here. How many people you feeding with that half, and how long does it last? For the three of us a whole only lasts a little over a year.

My better half and I are it. I do give some to my daughter and a bit to my dad, but we consume the vast majority of it in a year. We bought the last half right at a year ago. We were out of burger and the best steaks about a week ago. We have a couple of roasts, some stew meat and some tenderized rounds left, at the moment. Maybe 20# total. We pick up our half on Saturday. We planned it out about right, me thinks

Thanks. I regularly hear people talk about getting a half and wonder just how little they eat. A half isn't as much as many people think.

same here!!!

we process our own so its pretty much jus tthe time in it. she gave us a few nice calves so i'd say she paid for herself

exactly! and there are some that only get 1/4. we butcher a whole steer, 2 hogs and about 50-60 chickens every year plus anything we hunt. but we rarely eat anywhere but home.