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Just wonderin???

the_jersey_lilly_2000

Well-known member
How many of you feed out your own freezer beef?

We do....usually one a year, just for us 4. We do share some with a neighbor, and have tried to get Mr Lilly's folks to take some. We usually hafta put some in their spare deepfreezer cuz it won't all fit in ours. But they never touch it. She'd rather go to the store and buy their meat. Home grown tastes soooooo much better than what you buy in the stores.
Also we were talkin to a neighbor rancher recently. (He's one of the largest in our area, runnin around 4000 mama's) and he doesn't either. My question is....if you don't, why not???
 

IL Rancher

Well-known member
We raise our own Beef and generally lamb and pork and chickens too.. ..ABout now we are about to run out of beef but we have two critters schedualed to go in second week of June so we will keep a half for ourselves.. Out of pork right now but have a couple hogs that are getting ready to go in too so it looks like we might be eating a lot of chicken until we get our beef and pork back from the butcher..

I actually had a friend who hit hard times and we offered to give them a couple boxes of beef and they wouldn't take it because they wanted their beef t be more anonymous.. Didn't want to think of anyone they knew knowing it.. Of course, this person basically only eats hamburger and bonelss chicken breast or ground turkey because they don't like to eat meat that looks like meat...Very odd.... We also had folks that bought some meat from us and made us name their critter so they knew who they were eating.. I found that... Odd..
 

Maple Leaf Angus

Well-known member
Got 2 hanging right now. One side for us and the rest for other folks.

It sure is reassuring that we got something good when customers call up and ask when we are butchering beef again! Now I just need to work up the nerve to charge what it is worth.

We have always sold it for the same price as the butcher shop, but have found that we'd be almost as well off to sell the animal live at the stockyards.
 

alabama

Well-known member
I raise my own and like it.
My daugther does her shoping at my house. She gets her some sacks and goes through the frezer loads up on what she want. Maters, okra, peas, corn, butter beans, and beef. I guess with buying baby milk all the time she can use some help.
 

the_jersey_lilly_2000

Well-known member
Our last one was done in June. and I cooked the last roast yesterday. Still have a few round steaks left, but that's about it. I'm really dreadin havin to go buy meat to tide us over till the next one goes in for butcher. last one weighted 800 lbs when we took him in...I'm thinkin the next one should weigh 1000 to get us thru the whole year on one beef LOL
 

IL Rancher

Well-known member
The last one we did was 1300 and we did him in June of last year. we only kept a half and gave the other half to our hired guy. But my 4 year old and 1 year old doesn't eat that much food yet so we don't go through it very fast.. It is mighty slim pickens now though and as the kids get older and eat more we will go through a lot more... That's okay, they will make more steers...
 

the_jersey_lilly_2000

Well-known member
alabama said:
I raise my own and like it.
My daugther does her shoping at my house. She gets her some sacks and goes through the frezer loads up on what she want. Maters, okra, peas, corn, butter beans, and beef. I guess with buying baby milk all the time she can use some help.

LOL I hadn't thought that far ahead...when the kids move out......comein home to do their shoppin. Hmmmmmmm n here I thought when they left home the grocery bill would go down LOL
Lil Lilly can really pack away the groceries...where she puts it, I have no idea at all. The girl can EAT!!!!!
Had somethin happen that was kinda funny. She will come in after a roast has been cooked, and eat allllllll the left over taters. When I was puttin the roast n taters up, my son was in the kitchen helpin me. after puttin the tin foil over the taters n roast bowl and gravy bowl, he took a sharpie marker and wrote, "DO NOT EAT!!!" on it. Mr Lilly got up this mornin, was gonna make himself a roast sandwich to take to work. He called n asked, "Why is that wrote on the bowls?" He was skeered to make a sandwich so didnt. LOL I told him it was to keep Lil Lilly out of it so there'd be roast taters, and gravy left overs, instead of just roast n gravy.
 

Turkey Track Bar

Well-known member
Lilly:

We raise our own beef, but I do at times buy Certified Hereford Steaks for "special" occasions.

My folks raise cattle, but don't eat their own beef. There is just them at home and even a half would take them a long time to eat. I asked them if they wanted a quarter of ours, and they said no.

Some other reasons folks don't eat their own:

Don't have a butcher shop around, or it's bad. I would rather eat store bought than have meat out of a bad butcher shop. There seems to be no mediocrity with meat shops...either top notch or horrid.

With the cost of corn, and high calf prices, economically it might make more sense to buy.

Here's some things we do with our "beef" carcass that lots probably don't do:
-Personally we don't really like pot/chuck roasts. Our little butcher shop makes really great beef sticks. We had them make all the chuck, with the exception of the flat iron steaks (infraspinatus, beef shoulder top blade) into beef sticks and hamburger.
-We also had them pull the eye of the round out and we'll have that for steaks, but had the rest of the round made into jerky.
-Had the sirloin made into steaks, with the exception of the tri-tip. That is the best roast in the critter....makes a great grilling roast.
-Keep the brisket...have the deckle removed and taken to 1/4-1/2 inch trim.
-Keep the skirts and flanks....those are great eating off the grill.

Our critter should be done tomorrow.

Cheers---

TTB :wink:
 

Judith

Well-known member
I had to do that :) 8) I was on a meat rabbit forum the other day and this lady went completely bonkers that we were talking about raising rabbits for meat?????. I think her first clue should have been the words "meat rabbit forum" but what do I know :) LOL
 

John SD

Well-known member
I had a 1350 lb steer butchered in January by a local locker plant. Shared the front quarters with my sister and sold the rear quarters to a couple different folks. I'm run out of steak already but I still have burgers and roasts.

In March I took a couple steers in that I raise for a friend back east for his family and friends. I sold him the steers for $1.06/lb on the hoof delivered to the locker plant. He takes over from there and pays the processing and the shipping (air freight).

I talked to him on the phone this morning. By the time he gets it to his place the finished product costs about $4.21/lb. He is satisfied especially living in an urban area where hamburger costs $5/lb. Wants me to save 3 steers for him next year. I'm thinking with the way costs are I might have to raise my on the hoof price to $1.10/lb.
 

young gun

Well-known member
we also raise a steer for butcher and sell 1/2 but now that the family is growing. a 1/2 beef doesn't last all year so this year i am feeding up two steers one to sell and one to keep hopefully the one sold will ofset the cost of the one we keep so we have free beef in our freezer. i don't even like to buy meat in the store the flavor is nothing like home raised beef. and speaking of rabbits i keep telling my wife (city slicker) that we should raise rabbits for their meat, she thought i was crazy until she finally did some reading and found out that one rabbit could supply 75lbs of meat from her offspring in one year , also raise our own chickens for meat and eggs
 

Judith

Well-known member
Rabbits are easy to care for and 3 does and one buck will give you all the meat you need. (provided they are true meat rabbits, lots of people go to an auction and pick up culls and then can't figure out why there losses are so high.) Easy to butcher and you don't have all that moooing :)
 

HAY MAKER

Well-known member
The beef I get comes from a cafe,dont seem that long ago when butcher clubs were popular.
Times change....................good luck
 

Jinglebob

Well-known member
Judith said:
I had to do that :) 8) I was on a meat rabbit forum the other day and this lady went completely bonkers that we were talking about raising rabbits for meat?????. I think her first clue should have been the words "meat rabbit forum" but what do I know :) LOL

Was it some relation of yours? :???:




:wink:




Bwahahahahahahahaha

:twisted:
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
One of our customers has a feedlot here and sells right to the packer.
His meat is excellent and we buy a half beef at a time from him.
It is guaranteed, and he takes it to town to be butchered. We call
in our processing instructions and pick up the meat when it is ready.
We used to butcher our own, but you really need to feed two
critters together to have them do their best. Seems like they do
better with company. We did butcher our own last year and we
will this year as we have a 2 year old that got missed somehow.
2 years old, now that is GOOOOOOOD meat. So flavorful.

We also have ours hang at least 10 days and sometimes 2 weeks.
That has a lot to do with how good they are too, in my opinion.

A neighbor just got some meat from this same guy and it cost
$1.45 hanging weight. They weighed what they got back and it
cost them $3.09/lb for what they put in their freezer.
 

Jinglebob

Well-known member
Faster horses said:
One of our customers has a feedlot here and sells right to the packer.
His meat is excellent and we buy a half beef at a time from him.
It is guaranteed, and he takes it to town to be butchered. We call
in our processing instructions and pick up the meat when it is ready.
We used to butcher our own, but you really need to feed two
critters together to have them do their best. Seems like they do
better with company. We did butcher our own last year and we
will this year as we have a 2 year old that got missed somehow.
2 years old, now that is GOOOOOOOD meat. So flavorful.

We also have ours hang at least 10 days and sometimes 2 weeks.
That has a lot to do with how good they are too, in my opinion.

A neighbor just got some meat from this same guy and it cost
$1.45 hanging weight. They weighed what they got back and it
cost them $3.09/lb for what they put in their freezer.

If you think a 2 year old is good, try a four year old. Twice as good. :)
 

IL Rancher

Well-known member
Teh 1300 poudner we took in was a 28 month old out of a Van Dyke Bull that we AIed to back in 03... Ran it on ggrass and hay for most of its life and than finished t on a field of Barley that we grazed instead of hayed. He was fat.. And I mean fat and they hung him for 3 weeks... The place we take them too wants to hang them a minimum of 2 weeks but really likes three weeks as they feel they get a better product that way.. I love the job they do on beef except some of the packaging makes me scratch my head from time to time... Have though a few times about doing a 3-4 year old but now the places around here have to bone out the entire carcass if it is over than 30 months old and it costs a lot more that way........ I have heard great things about some of those older steers having a lot of flavour... I know this just shy of 30 month had a lot more than those that were 15 or so months that we did...
 
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