You can purchase a Whole Beef, a Half, or a Quarter. When you do, you’re technically not buying meat, but buying a live animal (or a fraction of one), so as well as paying us for the animal, you’re responsible for paying the processor to butcher it. Both those prices are calculated based on hanging weight, which is the weight of the carcass (or your fraction of it) after removing the head, feet, hide and innards, but before breaking it down into individual cuts of meat.
Please note that the actual weight of the cut and wrapped beef you take home is less than the hanging weight, due to moisture loss during aging (which is a good thing, it concentrates the flavors) and the weight of bones and connective tissue removed during butchering. Depending how you have the butcher cut it, the “shrinkage” can be as much as 40-50%—for example, a whole beef with a 700 pound hanging weight might yield around 400 pounds of packaged beef for your freezer.
Whatever the total weight of the meat you take home, you can roughly figure about 60% of it will be ground beef, 20% steaks, and 20% roasts by weight. The ground beef will be approximately 85% lean, 15% fat, with that fat being healthier for you than the fat in grain-fed beef.
Our beef is processed at J.M. Watkins Meats in rural Maiden Rock, WI. We feel incredibly blessed to have a locally owned, federally inspected slaughterhouse just 13 miles from our farm, and have found the staff at Watkins to be highly professional and good at what they do. They age meat in their cooler for one to two weeks before cutting it up and packaging it. During that time you’ll need to contact them directly with your cutting instructions, so they can cut and package your beef exactly the way you want it. If this is your first time giving cutting instructions, they do a great job walking you through your options and answering questions.
Please note that the actual weight of the cut and wrapped beef you take home is less than the hanging weight, due to moisture loss during aging (which is a good thing, it concentrates the flavors) and the weight of bones and connective tissue removed during butchering. Depending how you have the butcher cut it, the “shrinkage” can be as much as 40-50%—for example, a whole beef with a 700 pound hanging weight might yield around 400 pounds of packaged beef for your freezer.
Whatever the total weight of the meat you take home, you can roughly figure about 60% of it will be ground beef, 20% steaks, and 20% roasts by weight. The ground beef will be approximately 85% lean, 15% fat, with that fat being healthier for you than the fat in grain-fed beef.
Our beef is processed at J.M. Watkins Meats in rural Maiden Rock, WI. We feel incredibly blessed to have a locally owned, federally inspected slaughterhouse just 13 miles from our farm, and have found the staff at Watkins to be highly professional and good at what they do. They age meat in their cooler for one to two weeks before cutting it up and packaging it. During that time you’ll need to contact them directly with your cutting instructions, so they can cut and package your beef exactly the way you want it. If this is your first time giving cutting instructions, they do a great job walking you through your options and answering questions.