Need info on buying a half cow

[rhianna813]

I am looking for specifics on buying a half of a grassfed cow directly from a farmer. If you have experience with this can you see my questions?

My MIL is interested to go in one together and she was talking to a farmer at her local butcher. He gave his pricing and website, but I think he is VERY spendy. We are in Oregon but he is selling in California.

I looked at local Craiglist ads and the prices are good. But their ads vary in details a lot. So before I call asking a bunch of questions I want to make sure I am asking the right ones and know the lingo.

1)What is the hanging weight?
2)How big is a cow? The MIL emailed about was 450 LBs but I saw an add saying their ¼ cow was 150 LB, which is more 600 whole.
3)Ads seem to sell mostly Angus beef – is this good?
4)It’s extra for cut/wrap, which I guess is done through a butcher or processing place?
5)Are all cuts the same price? It kinda seems like that me, which is making this seem like a really good deal.
6)Is there a separate kill fee? Some ads mention this, others don’t. How much is that fee in general?
7)How does the cow get to the processing/butcher place? In the back of my Sentra (praying that is not the case).
8)Any other info I missed or should look into when considering this?

Thanks a bunch!

Rhianna

[JollyGG]

#5 You shouldn't pay by lb or pkg. You will usually pay one price for the whole cow from the rancher and then another processing fee to the butcher.

I'd ask which processing places they will work with (deliver the cow to) and which they prefer to work with.

If there is a kill fee that will usually be at processing. You will need to get that information from the butcher (not usually the rancher).

Once you know who the rancher will work with for processing/butchering you will need to call them to get specifics about their pricing.

Some ranchers do set their price as all inclusive. In other words you pay them one price and then they pay the butcher. So ask if the price includes processing or not.

[possum]

1)What is the hanging weight?
This is the weight of the cow after it has been slaughtered and the hide, hooves, head, and organds have been removed.

2)How big is a cow? The MIL emailed about was 450 LBs but I saw an add saying their ¼ cow was 150 LB, which is more 600 whole.
They vary a lot.

3)Ads seem to sell mostly Angus beef – is this good?
Angus is the standard good beef cow in the US. They generally tend to have good fat marbling.

4)It’s extra for cut/wrap, which I guess is done through a butcher or processing place?
Yes. This is usually priced per pound of meat that you receive.

5)Are all cuts the same price? It kinda seems like that me, which is making this seem like a really good deal.
I'm not getting the question, I think. Since you are buying the whole cow, you get it for once price total and you can divide it up any way you want as far as cost. Generally, I have found that I pay less per lb for a 1/4 or 1/2 than I would per lb for ground beef, so it's a good deal.

6)Is there a separate kill fee? Some ads mention this, others don’t. How much is that fee in general?
IME, there usually is, but sometimes it is included in the processing total.

7)How does the cow get to the processing/butcher place? In the back of my Sentra (praying that is not the case).
The farmer generally takes it there, IME.

8)Any other info I missed or should look into when considering this?
If you aren't familiar with the cuts that you will get, you may do a bit of looking in cookbooks or on the internet to familiarize yourself with what your choices will be so you can answer the butcher's questions about what you want.
If you want the fat, organs, or extra bones, be sure to ask the butcher for these ahead of time. This stuff is all yours, so don't be afraid to ask for what you want.
Also, if you contact the butcher before the animal is slaughtered, you can get the heart ground up (I add it to ground beef). Otherwise you will receive it whole.


Melinda

[AJP]

There are a lot of different scenarios for buying beef this way, depending on the farmer and the butcher services available in your area. We've done it two ways. When we bought a 1/4 beef, it was from an animal the farmer took to the USDA-inspected butcher (one of the few small operations left in CA, not one of the huge operations, mostly those big places won't process for small, local farmers anyway) as part of a group, where it was killed, aged, cut and packaged. If the farmer is selling the meat as cuts (rather than a whole, live animal), they are required by law to have it killed and packaged by a USDA-inspected facility, but this adds cost and honestly you can't be 100% assured that the beef you get back is from the farm you're buying it from, because places like that typically do animals from a number of different places in one day (although the farmer we used said they're relatively confident they get back their own animals, because of the way this particular place is run).

When we bought a whole beef from the same farmer, we bypassed the USDA-approved place altogether by purchasing the animal still alive and having a ranch butcher come to the farm. He killed the steer there (much less stress involved, no transporting of live animals to the slaughterhouse, the animal doesn't even know anything out of the ordinary is happening), cleaned and halved it, took it back to his shop to hang it for aging, then cut it to our specifications. We also requested all the bones and cutting scraps (which normally get thrown away by the USDA places, you can't get them back even if you want them) to make stock and feed to our dogs. We ended up paying less than $3/lb. for what we got back. We paid the farmer for the animal, and the butcher for the work of turning it into meat. You can sometimes arrange to buy a half beef this way also, if another customer wants the other half at the same time. The meat gets a "not for sale" label on the package, because since it didn't get processed in a USDA-inspected facility it's not legal to sell it as packaged cuts (since, you know, the sporadic presence of a USDA inspector magically makes meat from big slaughterhouses safer than meat packaged by a local, conscientious butcher).

[rhianna813]

Thank you so much for this info!

Rhianna