How To Eat Beef Forever

Grow Your Own Beef

I’m sure you have noticed the price of beef at your local grocery store, it’s high! Today we’ll talk about how I got 387 pounds of fresh beef that is free of antibiotics and growth hormones.

Grow Your Own Beef

If you’ve been on twitter for any period of time, you’ve noticed the health and wellness accounts talking about the importance of eating meat. It’s been a portion of our diets since the beginning of time. I like to think of the story in the Bible of the prodigal son, when the old farmer’s wayward son came home he told his farm hands to kill the fatted calf. They ate good that night!

In a past article I covered many of the reasons why beef cost so much at the store these days. There are many costs involved with raising cattle. Transportation, feed, medicines, butchering, regulation, all add up. Not to mention the amount of land they require and handling facilities. Because of these costs, ranchers are forced to do everything they can to get the cattle to grow as efficiently as possible.

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This leads to methods that may not be in the consumer’s best interest. The feed is likely GMO and the cheapest they can get. Ranchers use antibiotics to increase the efficiency of the cattle’s digestive system so the cattle eat and drink more and therefore grow faster. They also use genetically modified growth hormones to increase cattle size faster. This is all FDA and USDA approved, however, we don’t necessarily know if it’s good for humans to be eating meat raised in this manner.

I don’t blame the ranchers, they are doing what they can to make a small profit for their work. The current market system is crippling the farmers, the big centralized meat processors are the ones squeezing the price on the ranchers.

The only way to get around these methods is to source meat from a reputable farmer that does not follow these practices.

Or

Grow your own.

If you have land, I’ve covered the space/fencing/facility requirements to properly raise cattle. You’re not going to get rich off of raising cattle these days unless you have a ton of land or own your own butchering facility, good luck with that.

Therefore, the way I see it, and the way I’m planning to do things, is the only option that makes sense. Raise 1-2 steers on a few acres to butcher for my own personal source of beef for family and friends.

How To Do It

On a small farm, raising cattle for profit is not really feasible. Raising cattle requires lots of room to grow. Cows take almost a year to calve and the calves take almost a year to grow to size for butcher. Therefore, it makes more sense to find young calves that have already been castrated (steers) and weened from a larger farmer.

Purchasing a young steer is pretty easy, most cattle farmers are willing to sell bum calves that were rejected by the mother or the mother dies. In my area these calves usually go for $300-$400. If the farmer is close to you, they might even deliver. One steer can easily be kept on 3 acres, with hay supplement over the winter periods. In a year’s time, you should have a 600 pound steer almost ready.

The only thing needed for the cattle is a good water source and plenty of grass to eat. In the winter you will need hay to keep him fed. There are de-worming medicines that are good to give them twice a year to make sure he is healthy. These medicines can be purchased locally at any feed store and with 1-2 steers, you don’t need much so it’s very inexpensive.

Towards the end of the growing period, you may want to “finish” the steer. This is adding a feed to his diet, usually corn, which adds fat to the meat and gives you the popular marbled texture. Every rancher will have their own methods for finishing but it’s basically 5 pounds of corn per day for 1-3 months. This adds cost to your product, and is totally up to you whether you want to do it or not.

The numbers

Basic estimated costs for raising one steer are as follows (these numbers will vary depending on location and steer size)

• Young steer - $400

• Hay Supplement over winter - $150

• De-worming medication - $50

• Finishing Grain/Corn - $100

• Butcher (600 pound steer) - $450

• Total - $1150

• Cost per pound of beef - $2.98

As you can see this price per pound is much less than what you’re seeing at the grocery store. The meat quality should be much better too. One steer would be plenty to feed a family of five for at least 6 months depending on how often you choose to prepare beef for dinner.

It’s important to find a good reputable butcher to ensure your meat is handled properly.

For a whole steer, depending on the finished size, there are approximately 20 roasts, 20 t-bone steaks, 10 sirloin steaks, 10 sirloin tip steaks, 26 rib-eye steaks, and 12 round steaks. There are also short ribs, flank steak, stew meat, brisket and approximately 100 pounds of ground beef. You can choose to have any of the cuts made into ground beef. You can also choose to get all of the organ meat.

As a rule of thumb you can plan on using 1 cubic foot of freezer space for 35-40 pounds of beef.

But I don’t have any land!

I know many of you aren’t able raise your own beef because you don’t have the means, but I know you probably still want a good source of fresh beef. I wrote an article going into more of the specifics on this matter, but here is how I would go about finding a source.

• Go on Facebook and search for “cattle farmer” groups.

• Make a post looking for “finished steer for butcher” with your location.

You will find several cattle farmers this way. You may have to expand your driving distance depending on your location. From there you will try to find a farmer with a page, or maybe even a website that looks to be legitimate. If you can find reviews on his operation, even better.

Message him and work out the pricing, date of butcher, etc. Your cost will be significantly more than raising your own since the farmer is having to bear all of the costs associated with raising and transporting the animal.

You also may not have very much freezer space. Due to the cost, and freezer space requirements, I recommend finding a friend or family member to split the half of beef. This will lessen the amount of beef you receive, but it will allow you to develop a relationship with a farmer and give you much needed knowledge about how the process works.

You can do this, I believe in you!

I hope you enjoyed this post. Let me know if you have any questions!

WAGMI

Farmer