1/4 cow - price?

[greencrayon]

Random, but I just found out my neighbor sells beef. We buy local grassfed at the market, but ground beef is anywhere from $6-$9/lb, so I'm very interested if it's cheaper than that. How much should I expect to pay for 1/4 cow? Is it worth it?

[hamster]

We buy half a cow every year. Last year we spent $2.75 per pound hanging weight, plus 60 cents per pound to the butcher, and $50 towards the kill fee.

For a total of $900, here's what we ended up with in our freezer:
Ground beef - 41 packages, approximately 1 pound each
Stew meat - 7 packages
Soup Bones -5 packages
Heart - 1 package
Liver - 7 packages
Brisket -1 package
Rump roast - 3 packages
Chuck roast - 9 packages
Cross-rib roast - 2 packages
Flank steak - 1 package
Round steak - 8 packages
Sirloin tip steak - 7 packages
T-bone steaks - 7 packages
Ribeyes - 5.5 packages (one only has a single steak)
Short ribs - 7 packages
Round Bone roast - 3 packages
Oxtail - 1
Dog bones - 10 to 15 pounds
Suet - 10 pounds

It's just two of us, but we can eat through it in a year if we make a very conscious effort.

[Dusky]

The last one we bought averaged out to roughly $3.50/lb for local grass fed. I'm not sure how much price varies by area. I think it is worth it if you have the freezer space, especially if you have a say in how it is butchered. (We use very little ground beef so we preferred to have that portion mainly cut into roasts).

[BioNerd]

hamster how do you use the heart and oxtail?

[hamster]

I don't remember what we did with oxtail, but I'm pretty sure we didn't like it. I know heart has gone into chili before.

Weird stuff ends up going to the dog oftentimes. It's free, might as well take it!

[Deleted]

We paid $675 for local, grass-fed. I believe we had about 140 pounds of meat (we didn't get and organs or cleaned bones). We were told what the cuts would be and we were able to choose how it was packaged. For some of it we chose pre-seasoned deep pit and sausage since they seemed like tasty options. We don't eat a whole lot of meat and we have gone through less than half of our meat since February. We will definitely do it again next year.

[usuallylurking]

Our beef is going to slaughter on Monday, so it's fresh in my mind we are paying $2.15/lb hanging weight, plus $0.53/lb cut and wrap to the butcher, and a $50 kill fee. It's grassfed and grass finished, and so delicious. This is our second year ordering. I don't know the exact cut list but it's very similar to hamster's. The beef will dry age for 14 days or so and during that time the butcher will call me and ask how thick we want any steaks, how large to make the ground beef packages, pound preference for the roasts, if I want certain cuts left that way or turned into burger, etc. I love it and we won't ever buy beef from a supermarket again!

[gibbinator]

I can't remember how many pounds of meat we got, but several years ago we paid $450 for 1/4 cow (vlcol). I think we probably got a good deal though because we were close friends/roommates with the farmer's son.

[spankswife]

My inlaws buy 1/4 or a 1/2 cow at a time. It comes to about $2.50-$3/lb

[cajunmom]

Sept 19, 2014 19:28:20 GMT -5 BioNerd said:

hamster how do you use the heart and oxtail?

I'm not hamster, but we feed the heart to our dogs and H finds various recipes for the oxtail...usually some type of soup or braising recipe.

[nomad100]

We pay about $3.50/lb for a front quarter or $3.85/lb for a rear quarter (hanging weight 175 lbs). If we get a full half it is $3.55/lb (hanging weight 375/lbs).

We get the leg bones cut into sections for the dogs.

[toesie]

Sept 19, 2014 19:28:20 GMT -5 BioNerd said:

hamster how do you use the heart and oxtail?

Oxtail makes great Pho broth!

[protozoa]

Ours is $3.50/lb hanging weight, including all the preparation which is done onsite. Totally pasture raised.

[Norticprincess]

Ours is usually in the mid $3s ($3.40-$3.70/ lb finished) varies a bit - if you are doing half vs quarter at our local butcher.

If we do one of my cousin's cows it is between $4-$5, but her butcher is a bit more for processing their own cow.

[Deleted]

Sept 19, 2014 19:06:12 GMT -5 Dusky said:

The last one we bought averaged out to roughly $3.50/lb for local grass fed. I'm not sure how much price varies by area. I think it is worth it if you have the freezer space, especially if you have a say in how it is butchered. (We use very little ground beef so we preferred to have that portion mainly cut into roasts).

This is the approximate price I've seen too.

[lishie]

We just bought a 1/2 cow (our farm charges same for 1/4 and 1/2) and it's $3.75 a pound, hanging weight.

Our farm doesn't charge the cut/kill fees separately. I believe it's all in the per pound price.

[Noblegirl]

Sept 19, 2014 19:28:20 GMT -5 BioNerd said:

hamster how do you use the heart and oxtail?

We get 1/4-1/2 a cow each year.  Last year we got 1/4 and paid around $460.00, which was around $2.00/lb hanging weight.  We didn't pay a butcher fee because we did it ourselves (my grandfather was a butcher and my parents have the commercial equipment). 

I don't eat the heart or tail, but my parents do.  They make pickled heart with the heart and oxtail soup with the tail. 

After having this luxury my whole life, grocery store beef grosses me out, so I definitely think it's worth it.