We recently read that the price of beef at the grocery store is going up to $5.30 in an article on
Yahoo! Can you believe that? We raise our own cattle for beef and have even done it for the purpose of selling to others and for our personal use. The
Money Saving Queen recently posted an article about
How to Buy Local Grass-fed Beef by another blogger that was awesome and very informative if you have never bought beef like that before. Kyle and I got to talking and we came up with some more information that we would add to
Once A Month Mom's post.
You can also find our guest post on
Money Saving Queen.
Grass Fed Beef: Other Things to Consider
Lately a lot of articles have been
written about buying beef by the quarter, half or whole from local
farmers. We have personally raised Angus
–cross steers for our own use and to sell beef to others. Here are a few other things we thought you should consider to
help you have a good experience with your purchase.
Breed
of Cattle - First is the breed of
cattle. Unless you want mainly
hamburger, you need to avoid dairy breeds (Holstein, Jersey, etc) as they are
bred for milk production and not high quality steaks and roast. In most meat departments you will likely see
something like "Certified Angus", and even fast food chains have
jumped on the bandwagon with Angus burgers.
Angus is a breed of beef cattle that has been marketed very well, but
you don't need to have the mindset of Angus as a requirement for good
meat. All of the beef breeds will
produce good meat, some may take longer to get into good condition.
Conditioned
Well - You also want to try to look
at the live animals to make sure that they are conditioned well. If you have never looked at cattle before,
there are a couple of things that you need to pay attention to. To start, make sure that animal is
conditioned well, you basically don't want the animal looking like a long,
lanky teenager. Another thing is to look
down the top of the animal. You don't
want the back of animal to like a “V”. A
flatter back is a sign of better muscle, and thus bigger steaks.
Grass
fed versus Grain fed - Another topic
is grass fed versus grain fed. Grass fed
means that the animal has not been given any grain/feed. Grass fed beef has more of a yellow color to
the fat versus the white fat that you are used to seeing in meat market. Typically we allow our steers to run on grass
and hay until 60 days before processing.
Feeding the steers grain for 60 days allows for the meat to get marbling
without excess fat.
Aging
the Meat - One key to tender meat is aging
to meat while hanging on the rail. Aging
is not as common anymore and you may have to request that the processor do
this. Typically a carcass can hang for a
minimum of two weeks and can hang longer, but the processor must check the meat
daily to make that it does not dry out.
If you will pay attention to the menus at higher end steak houses, you
will likely see "Aged Meat" somewhere on the menu.
Typical
Average Cost - The costs can vary
somewhat. A typical average cost to
purchase the beef from the farmer is $2.75 per pound hanging weight, with
average rail weights around 600lbs , making a full beef around $1,650 to buy
the meat from the farmer. Grass fed purchase
costs normally are going to be higher because it typically takes longer to get
the animal to processing. Processing costs will depend on how you have
it cut and how you have it packaged. We
like to have our roasts and steaks vacuum packed to reduce the risk of freezer
burn on the meat. Processing fees will
run around $0.60 per pound hanging weight, or $360 for a typically 600lbs rail
weight. Other fees that you need to ask
about and maybe charged are kill fees and possibly a skinning fee depending on
the processor. Grass fed cost is going
to be higher because it typically takes longer to get the animal to processing.
Where to Find Beef – There are several
ways to find beef for sale. Every spring
and fall 4-H and FFA youth show steers and need to sell their current show
animal to purchase another one to show the next year. You can contact your local County Extension
Agent or the Argriculture teacher at your local school to find animals that are
available. Farmers will also run ads in
the local newspaper and on Craigslist.
You can even check with your state or local food cooperative. Two sites that you can search on is
Cooperative Grocer Network and Coop Directory Services Listing. For the state of Oklahoma, you can search the
Oklahoma Food Cooperative.
Additional resources
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