Quail_Antwerp: Words from the Barnyard...

[Quail_Antwerp]

tamlynn, you're welcome.

We've been trying to figure out the price thing on the cattle price all day. Do you think it's because they're 1/2 dairy 1/2 beef crosses???? We had them steered, and they're filling out like pure beefs would...Not bony like dairy.

It's just frustrating.

We know other places are getting more for hormone free, chemical free, and grass fed beef.

 

[tamlynn]

I don't think the type of cow has anything to do with it. It's just your market. My cousin here in SoCal and a bunch of people just went in on a local-ish beef buy for a whole cow. Her name was Ruby. It worked out to be $6.25 per pound, butchered and processed and whatever.

 

[SKR8PN]

Aly......that steer that I bought last fall from my neighbor, I paid $1.20 per pound hanging weight and I paid the processing fee of $150.00. The steer weighed in at 340 lbs HANGING weight which is prolly around 550 to 600 pounds on the hoof. Your auctioneer was trying to steal your beef!

Do you think Becca would let you put Boss in the back of her Blazer for the ride to Mansfield?

 

[Farmfresh]

Aly......that steer that I bought last fall from my neighbor, I paid $1.20 per pound hanging weight and I paid the processing fee of $150.00. The steer weighed in at 340 lbs HANGING weight which is prolly around 550 to 600 pounds on the hoof. Your auctioneer was trying to steal your beef!

I tend to agree with that summary! Then again there are STILL those brainwashed out there who believe that a cow MUST be corn fed to be edible! I talked long and hard to a farmer that I befriended while I was a cashier at TSC. He was bemoaning the fact that he had a dozen yearling calves that had only been grass fed and he was not going to be able to corn feed them before sale. He was planning on running them through the auction for feeders at a loss.

I TRIED and TRIED to explain to him that people were paying Top Dollar for grass fed.

He TRIED and TRIED to convince me that I was out of my mind. You can not even chew a beef that has not been corn fed he said. No one would buy a grass fed beef!

The old brainwashing is hard to change.

A reason to find a good small processor in your area is to help market those beeves. The typical person will not know where to get the beef processed and probably will not be able to haul it. If you can have those bases covered you could open up to MORE customers and probably get an even higher price.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Do you think Becca would let you put Boss in the back of her Blazer for the ride to Mansfield?

that's doubtful!!

We're discussing finding out about taking them straight to the slaughter house ourselves, because selling them through Auction is selling them to the middle man. The middle man takes them to the slaughter house and gets paid double what they're paying for the steers at market.

We want to cut out the middle man.

We're also discussing researching some local butchering prices - the closest two places being one in Waynesburg and one in Martinsferry - and see if we can get buyers for halves, wholes, or quarters of our grass fed steers.

Our original plan was to sell one outright to pay for butcher of the other to fill our own freezer, but we no longer have a deep freezer to fill.

Now with wanting to move the newer trailer, we need to sell both to pay for moving expenses.

We'll figure it out I hope. We have plenty of time.

 

[SKR8PN]

That beef I bought was NOT corn fed, and it is some of the best beef we have ever had! If you do the math on the numbers I posted, we ended up with about $1.64 per pound of beef, processed and frozen. My one buddy thought I was nuts until I pointed out what they get per pound for T-bones in the store. NOW who's the crazy one?


EDIT: You snuck your post in just before mine. Good thoughts and prayers sent out from the Branch Ranch.

 

[lorihadams]

I hope everything goes well for you and DD and that b*$#@^& gets what he deserves!

 

[freemotion]

Will be thinking of you and your dd today.....

As for the beef, I pause at CL ads for grass-fed beef all the time. There is someone out there who wants it. They charge way more than SKR8PN's $1.64/lb, so you can make some nice profit. I don't really understand all the terminology....hanging weight is what they usually sell it by. So much per pound hanging weight, and the buyer needs to do the math to guess how much meat that will actually be.

Find a local chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation and let them know you have grass-fed beef on the hoof. People will drive for that, so don't dismiss a chapter that is a good ways away. The members really value it and will also likely arrange to split one up among 2-4 members so you don't have to....you can just sell them by the steer. They can pick up their meat themselves at the processer's place.

Just checked and there are a bunch of chapters in your state: http://westonaprice.org/chapters/index.php#oh

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

We're back.

I want to thank everyone for the prayers and thoughts today.

The trial is a week from this Friday on July 9.

I want to talk about a few things, but I need to gather my thoughts and get my emotions in check.

Thanks for the link on the beef, I'll need to get myself back into that train of thought before I can do much with that information right now.

I will say, things are definitely going the way we want them to go and we really like the prosecuting attorney. He was super nice. He told our DD that she is a Hero.

 

[Blackbird]

I agree with Free, check your local Craigslist for prices and see what you can get.

Just yesterday I seen an ad for Holstein steers, grass fed going $1.50 per lb hanging weight plus $.40 per lb for custom processing - they even required a deposit on larger cuts of meat. And that was one of the cheapest. Others are selling for $2.40 up to 3.50 per lb of grass fed beef.

A couple years ago we sold some wethers at auction, they only went for .50 per lb live weight - just today on my local Craigslist goat is selling 1.50 per lb live weight.
Auctions are great if you want to buy cheap, but not so much for selling it seems.

I'm not sure about your laws on Ohio, but up here I'm pretty sure as long as the animal is processed at an FDA inspected slaughterhouse and meat packaging place, the farm can sell the meat to whomever.