What Does It Cost To Have A Whole Cow Butchered?

folks today on the Stony Ridge Farm Channel we're going to talk to you a little bit about what it takes to make beef what it's like to raise your own beef on your own property and take it to the butcher shop we're going to talk about pricing the cuts and everything you need to know these are my cows this is my farm and we're going to have some fun today we're going to learn a little bit about beef all right making yourself self-sustainable by raising your own food awesome Farms the buffet is open come on through oh that's my cow song guys welcome back to the Stoney Ridge Farm this is your first time here your 50th time please hit that like button today we're going to be showing you my first generation Farm project here and we're going to talk to you a little bit about what it entails to raise your own beef cow we're going to talk about grass-fed and grass-finished beef that's right girl these are my brood cows The Brood cows are the mama cows and the baby cows are coming in behind them so come along today as we talk to you about all the expenditures that it takes to raise grass-fed grass finish beef for your family and stick around to the end we'll talk to you a little bit about how you can buy beef right here off the Stoney Ridge Farm from our grass-fed operation [Music] so every day on the farm we move the cows twice a day in the summertime so that they get a fresh patch of grass and they're never grazing right next to their own manure and that's how we afford the opportunity to not have to medicate and or worm or give our animals antibiotics so what we're trying to do here is get away from medications and just have cows on grass and good pasture management and Land Management environmental practices come on through guys there goes Tammy Tammy's our guard donkey come on through don't worry the young ones sometimes have a hard time negotiating their way through the gate I don't know why let's see if I can push him through this way that's a good cow all right guys what you see around you right here is the Stoney Ridge Farm about 12 years ago I had the dream I had a dream of building my first Farm I had a dream of building a first generation farm and I was sick of the food industry in this country and I'm still disgusted with it what's pond off as food nowadays is not food okay go in the grocery store if it's got 50 different ingredients throw it in the trash and don't buy it don't buy that garbage I'm telling you that's my politics that's my food rant out here on grass without fertilizer without medications we don't treat the well we only treat the sick and we haven't had a sick cow so let's just start with that today we're out here on pasture and we move our cows twice a day here in the summertime we move them about every three days in the winter time when we're feeding hay we have stockpiled hay this is a grass-fed grass-finished beef operation right here we've got about 50K cows right now and 50 is about all my land will sustain we're on 150 Acre Farm with about 80-ish Acres fenced and we just fenced in another 20 something Acres so we're getting ready to expand our pastures super proud no fertilizer on this green multi-species pasture in seven years seven years without fertilizer guys just butt fertilizer that comes out of those cows we incorporated cattle into our operation about three years ago started out with two bumped it up to four and now we're at 50. that's a lot of walking savings account right there and it's a lot of walking insurance for food so let's go over here by the cows a little bit we'll have them in the background we'll talk to you a little bit about what it costs to raise a cow how we raise these cows and what it takes to take a steer from a baby all the way to the freezer and this is reality guys and if you're out of touch with reality and you don't understand that meat comes from living things not from a 3D printer and not from the fake stuff that they're coming out with nowadays then I'm sorry you don't understand that but you're out of touch with reality in my opinion and I don't know you guys share your opinion what do you think about fake meat factory made fake meat tell me about it that's what we're against that's what we're trying to get away from We're raising animals out here and healing the land so let's go over to the cows and we'll talk to you about what it takes and what it costs to raise a cow grass-fed grass finished from start to finish and learn something so what you guys are here for this is called a beef cut sheet let me be ultimately clear I cannot and no farmer can legally sell beef that they've processed on their own if it's not USDA inspected all of the beef that comes off of this farm that is offered for sale is USDA inspected and is processed in a USDA inspected facility the beef cut sheet we're going to pop it up on the screen a little bit for you and try to put some arrows on some things we have the option of all of our Cuts so we've got brisket ribs short ribs skirt steak flank steak flat iron steak then we have roast we can choose from our own roast or they can just pick the best roast we have Chuck Roast Pot Roast sirloin tip I have round chuck pot London Broil tri-tip and rump roast what we chose was sirloin I do believe got sirloin tip and chuck roast and pot roast I do believe we have very limited supply of roast because they are about three and a half pounds when they are processed now on to steaks we have T-Bone New York strip filet mignon ribeye sirloin and cube steak cube steak is a less than palatable chewy meat that's ran through a process that tenderizes the meat so it's tenderized steak in other words it's like country fried or chicken fried steak that's how you make it okay so we do have cube steak we did do some sirloin steaks Ribeyes fillets New York strip and T-Bones once we get this up on the Stoney Ridge farmer website we'll offer it for sale for you guys so we also have stew beef beef tips and hamburger all these are Under the other category hamburger we can get in hamburger patties or we can just get it ground we do an 80 20 split so 80 percent lean in other words 20 percent fat the fat is the Little Slice of Heaven from the grass-fed beef the fat here is different the fat is better for you arguably there'll be links down in the video description for you guys if you want to do a little research on the fat from grass-fed beef that's pasture arrays versus the fat from beef that's raised on feedlots and typically what happens with beef is farmers will raise beef in a cow calf operation they'll take their calves at about four to six hundred pounds ish to the market they'll sell them they'll be loaded up on a truck and they'll be taken to a feed lot and fattened up for about yeah 12 to 18 months something like that typically close to 18 months now we also have some other options here we have beef bratwurst which we chose not to do we did beef chorizo we have that option we have beef meatloaf and beef salisbury steak on the cut sheet the beef chorizo cost an extra 50 cents per pound so does the Salisbury steak so does the meatloaf and the brats cost an extra dollar and five cents per pound hamburger patties cost an extra 50 cents per pound to Patty those out now our hamburger patties come in about 1.5 pound package if you decide to process beef that's what you'll probably get again it costs just a little bit more you get to order it in percentage or number of pounds okay now we can keep the bones for beef bones to make beef broth liver tongue oxtail heart kidney and testicles if applicable if you want bones it asks you how many bags so all of this is processed by weight that's where we go to the second page that we have here we process three beads so we'll use bees as or beefs as the terminology for what we processed here you can see they're all pretty shy they're all right over here now so we process three beefs Beef Processing we'll just go into this for you 541 pounds was the weight of one cow at one dollar and fifteen cents per pound so the cost to process that cow was 622.15 there is a Harvest Room fee in other words there's a fee for the butcher shop to dispatch the animal appropriately and humanely the saying at the beef processor that I go to is processed with care guys and these guys take the ultimate care it's not like you see on all the documentaries that they're running them through some horrible horrible place it's not horrible it's not cruel it's quick it's painless it's just bam and it's done guys our beef does not get stressed prior to processing that's something that's super important okay we're all about low stress animal handling okay so we talk about what we did here hamburger patties we had 26.15 pounds and add 50 cents per pound so it was 13.8 cents to get our hamburger patties done okay Salisbury steak we did 50 pounds of that that extra 50 cents that's 25 bucks Salisbury steak seasonings in there too it's five bucks um Beef Processing for the next cow 671 pounds now when I talk about this The Beef Processing so 671 pounds at a dollar fifteen is 771.65 The Harvest Room fee for a cow that was 601 to 900 pounds is 100 The Harvest Room fee for under 600 pounds is 90 in other words there's a kill fee of 90 bucks if they're under 600 pounds and then there's a kill fee of a hundred bucks if they're above 600 pounds between 600 and 900 and if you've got a massive cow that's like over 900 pounds I think it's 125 but that's something that you need to know if you're deciding to raise your own beef so again we had the season stuff which is Meatloaf salisbury steak and chorizo and that adds a few extra dollars on there so all in all saying that cost for a 671 pound cow at one dollar and fifteen cents covers all of your cuts it covers your Stakes it covers your rib eyes it covers your fillets it covers your hamburger but it doesn't cover the Patty fee the fee for the patties guys you may see some flies out here this is not your living room this is a farm and our cows don't get sprayed for flies they don't receive a systemic fly medication they get grass that's it some cows have flies on them and some don't some are more resistant to parasites and some aren't that's just something that's important to know about grass-fed beef that we raise here on the farm all in all saying we processed three cows the first one was 541 pounds the next one was 671 pounds and the next one was 679 pounds all in all out after all the cost our price was 2935 dollars believe it or not we wanted a private label on our beef that says Stony Ridge farmer beef and that private label cost us 300 bucks just to have the label made now the label's there forever and ever and from now on we'll have that done it was a one-time fee so that's what it cost to have a cal processed locally where I live now you can compare this and you can go to your local butcher shop or your local abattoir which is a slaughterhouse fancy word for slaughterhouse and you can find the price sheets and the cut sheets for your local place and I would say that the prices are probably going to be pretty comparable depending on the location that you live let's talk about grass-fed versus grain fed and the time that it takes to raise out and the choices that you have to make when you're taking these cows to the butcher so you notice the weights of the cows they were between 540 pounds and 680 pounds ish dressed out the cow itself probably weighed close to 900 to a thousand pounds each cow probably weighed about that much typical feedlot beef is going to take 12 to 18 months maybe a little bit longer maybe be a little bit less to raise out to processing typical beef that's raised on a feedlot is given an antibiotic in their feed which helps them to grow faster they are given a steroid either in their food or in a little injectable and their ear or underneath their skin which stimulates growth in other words we leave the testicles on our animals until our animals are much larger we don't castrate them at Birth a lot of operations do that we want to use that hormone that's naturally occurring in the animal to help that animal to grow it only makes sense right so our animals have more natural immunity they have more of the natural growth hormone and they have less outside inputs we don't have to give them steroids we don't have to give them antibiotics we don't feed them grain and we don't have to give them medications to keep them healthy and keep them from getting pneumonia because they don't live in a Dusty crowded feedlot where they're standing in places where they pooped it only makes sense guys if you eat where you poop you get sick these animals are on a section of pasture for about 12 hours they never have an opportunity to eat next to their own manure and therefore we don't have to medicate them how much sense does this make now you can't feed the world like that bull I call bullcrap there is so much vacant and unused land that's not fenced out there when you're driving down the highway next time just look out at all the land that's out there that is just unused we can do this as a nation and you vote with your dollar when you buy feedlot beef out of the grocery store that's my politics again I tell you I just want us to have good food good clean food so that being said the average cow on a feedlot 12 to 18 months ish something like that this just depends on the animal and how much steroid and antibiotic they feed them right now the average grass-fed and or grass finish beef is going to take anywhere from 18 to 24 up to 32 months to raise out so it takes longer to raise these hand raised beef cows that's Donnie the bull right there by the way it takes longer it takes more energy we don't have a factory system so in other words the cows get loaded up into a trailer they're taken to the lot where they will be processed and they stay overnight the next morning they are dispatched and then they process them they hang for about 15 days just like any other beef that you would buy in the grocery store and they age the beef so this is what you need to know they'll give you a call or an email the morning that your beef is done let you know you can come and pick it up you come and pick it up you write them a check you load it up you take a bunch of coolers or you do what I did and insulate the entire vehicle that you take them in and I loaded a whole truckload of beef in and brought it to the house now a lot of questions I get about grass-fed beef there are people that don't know how to process and or raise and or choose the right time of year to butcher grass-fed beef when is the time of year to butcher grass-fed beef when the grass is at its peak that is when you process grass-fed beef so what we do here on the farm is we will process this year one time next year we will process three times we'll hit it in the spring flush where we get mid-summer and then we will get a fall processing and that's where the beef will become available if you're interested in Stoney Ridge farmer beef or if you're interested in raising your own beef I hope this was good information there is a link to our patreon site we will be offering beef to the public not via patreon soon however right now there's very limited Supply and we have a patreon co-op down below you can click that you can become a member it helps support the farm it helps to buy the hay and it hopes to bring nature and natural ways back to Healing the land I'm looking back because never trust a bull never turn your back on a bull they're always a little bit aggressive and they've got that testosterone so you got to keep your eyes peeled when you're around a bull guys I hope this information helped you a whole lot we will be offering seed stock in other words if you want to buy a cow if you're local here in North Carolina South Carolina Virginia Georgia and you want to buy a cow and bring it to your place you are very welcome to post a comment down there and or you can go onto stonyridgefarmer.com shoot me an email we can talk about that I'm not sure what we're going to do at this point with that but this is my farm this is a first generation farm and we're raising our animals the way I believe they were intended to be raised guys thank you so much please hit that like button subscribe to the channel I hope you enjoyed this video by the way the coop that you saw me moving a little bit earlier in the video is our mobile Coupe it's past your sanitation so chickens go in behind the cows scratch through the manure spread it out on the land eat all the worms and bugs and the byproduct is chicken fertilizer in other words that stuff that comes out the back of the chicken is awesome for the grass so there'll be green patches everywhere once we get this Incorporated in we'll have three eggmobiles the byproduct is eggs and fertilizer and the chickens get to scratch through the poop it makes them happy guys thanks a lot hit that like button on your way out the door we'd love to have you back there'll be more Links at the end of this video if you'd like to watch some more Stoney rich farmer content I'd love to have you we do all kinds of fun stuff everything country and then a little bit more take care guys we'll see you next time on the Stoney Ridge whoa whoa girls [Music] and stick around fly cool electric fence hung under the machine now it's hung around my leg just got the fence hung around my leg dude I'm like I'm like a not so bright cow today hopefully I didn't tear the fence up just now think I did pretty sure I did can tell I did gotta go hook it back up you broke the fence dummy oopsie