Giant animals, akin to cows, are sometimes offered by the quarter, half, or entire by farmers.
This can be a “customized sale,” and your neighborhood farmer has given the go-ahead for direct gross sales. Legally, relying on the state, this will indicate that you’re buying a “cow share” versus particular person, specific cuts. Technically, you might be buying an animal “on the hoof,” whereas it’s nonetheless alive and earlier than a butcher can course of it.
Farmers typically ask for a deposit earlier than agreeing to reap the cow to gather orders for a Cow Share. A Farmer could due to this fact hold monitor of client orders, handle their stock, and coordinate processing dates with a butcher. Your Cow Share is “weighed” after the cow is harvested (often known as “hanging weight”) earlier than it’s ready into specific items.
1 / 4 cow could also be between 160 and 225 LBs in weight (relying on the age, breed, and feed). Your value for that share could be between $800 and $1125 if the hanging weight worth had been $5/LB. You could count on your cow share to be divided, packaged, labeled, and frozen.
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You need to be conscious that while you buy 1 / 4 of a cow, you might be paying for the animal’s hanging weight quite than only a single steak or roast. Anticipate to lose 25–40% of your cow share over the 14–28 days of hanging (moisture loss however higher style!) and slaughtering (eradicating disguise, cartilage, bone, and many others.).
Suppose your Quarter Cow is 33% “lighter” than the preliminary Hanging Weight after the cuts and age. Meat for take-home would most likely weigh between 120 and 160 lbs. (primarily based on the unique weight minus 33%). This suggests that you’ll have 4-5 buying baggage full of varied cuts (together with New York steak, roasts, and floor beef), and the calculation on your take-home meat is round $7–$8 per pound.
Full Breakdown
- For meat that you just take dwelling, there are not any extra charges.
- You pay $5 per pound of hanging weight, for instance. The amount of meat that could be taken dwelling varies primarily based on the breed, butchering technique, size of hanging, and many others.
- The burden of the animal hanging is calculated instantly after it has been harvested and hung. Cows “hold” for 14–28 days after being weighed. That is the proper vary, and it enhances the flavour.
- Meat that may be taken dwelling will weigh 25–40% lower than what’s hung. That is typical owing to moisture loss whereas hanging, breed (the proportion of meat to bone and non-meat), and waste produced by cartilage, bones, and butchering.
- As soon as the ultimate take-home meat has been weighed, the common worth is set and cut up by the unique quarter share cost. We calculated take-home beef at $7-8 per pound for the scenario talked about earlier. This covers the whole lot from tenderloin and New York steaks to floor beef and roasts.
- There needs to be numerous steaks, roasts, floor beef, and stew meat. Roughly half of your meat can be used for floor beef and stew, 1/4 for roasts (chuck, shoulder, rump, sirloin tip, and many others.), and 1/4 for steaks (sirloin, prime rib, T-bone, filet mignon, tenderloin, and many others.).
Conclusion
Whether or not to buy a full cow or 1 / 4 of a cow is fully as much as you. For those who’re a single particular person dwelling alone, it’s possible you’ll discover it not possible to buy an entire cow; however, 1 / 4 cow can work only for you. However, a big, meat-eating household could uncover that an entire cow doesn’t even final them the entire yr.
