# Self Sufficiency/Living off the Land or Off the Grid > Livestock and Animal Husbandry >  How to discover inexspensive 1/2 a cow butcherd meat.?????

## Wise Old Owl

just a thought it may be easy to some.. But I am fed up with paying these "corn" prices... Looking for help I am located in Chester County PA and willing to find farmers to buy meat direct.. 

any help would be appreciated.

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## Rick

Find a local slaughterhouse. You can usually buy 1/4, 1/2, whole or a variety.

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## hunter63

Got a farmer guy down the road the has black and red angus......He farms my land...so I can buy when they take them in to be slaughtered........
Shipping might be kind high buck....Best check with your local farmers market, co-op, or produce co-ops.

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## shiftyer1

Not sure what your community is like but here a lot of gas stations,  grocery stores,  etc have a bulletin board for people buying or selling or labor.

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## pete lynch

May be worth checking out Lancaster county. Not that far away from you. Take rte.30 west.

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## LowKey

I'm sure you know there's a lot to a half cow that goes into a low price that isn't meat. That low price is always "on the hook."

I get mine at one of two local slaughterhouses (I actually only get a hindquarter, a whole half is too much) usually cut and bagged with a tag on the bag saying what's in it.

Be sure you tell them you want it all. You have to specify wanting the tallow and the bones and the edible organs. Seriously. They probably won't sell you the lungs (haven't had pluck in decades) and I'm not sure about the brain. The head isn't usually included in the half cow. Here the slaughterhouses won't sell you any neural channel bones after the animal is a certain age (I think 8 months but not sure) That includes porterhouse cuts.

You have to specify the hamburg mix or you have to tell them that you want the hamburg trimmings in a bag and you'll do the grinding to your liking at home.

Find out if they are going to wrap and freeze it. I have long arguments with one of the slaughterhouses I use because they insist people are too stupid to be allowed to wrap and freeze their own meat (too many people complaining and requesting refunds because they think that the meat was bad that was sold to them. Because they packed it wrong in the freezer and it rotted before freezing.) 

Just a side note from experience, the "corn" price you pay is going to be significantly less in most areas than "grass fed" prices.  Grass fed meat is all the dietary rage right now and goes for premium $$$. You are more looking for a quantity discount, less packaging and less fuel charge in shipping the product. You would get an even bigger discount if you do the cutting yourself. I pay the extra 50¢ per pound to have it cut. I like my steaks bone-in and I don't have a bandsaw. I also get all the bones cut to under 8" to fit in a stock pot.

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## randyt

go to the local feed store and ask the proprietor if they know of anyone

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## hunter63

> I'm sure you know there's a lot to a half cow that goes into a low price that isn't meat. That low price is always "on the hook."
> 
> I get mine at one of two local slaughterhouses (I actually only get a hindquarter, a whole half is too much) usually cut and bagged with a tag on the bag saying what's in it.
> 
> Be sure you tell them you want it all. You have to specify wanting the tallow and the bones and the edible organs. Seriously. They probably won't sell you the lungs (haven't had pluck in decades) and I'm not sure about the brain. The head isn't usually included in the half cow. Here the slaughterhouses won't sell you any neural channel bones after the animal is a certain age (I think 8 months but not sure) That includes porterhouse cuts.
> 
> You have to specify the hamburg mix or you have to tell them that you want the hamburg trimmings in a bag and you'll do the grinding to your liking at home.
> 
> Find out if they are going to wrap and freeze it. I have long arguments with one of the slaughterhouses I use because they insist people are too stupid to be allowed to wrap and freeze their own meat (too many people complaining and requesting refunds because they think that the meat was bad that was sold to them. Because they packed it wrong in the freezer and it rotted before freezing.) 
> ...


Excellent post and a must read for those that want to buy meat this way.....Rep sent.
BTW that 1/2 isn't all steaks and roasts.....

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## Old Professor

My family used to buy half a cow from a local dairy farmer. Cows that no longer gave enough milk to be worth the cost of feeding it.  So ask around at local dairy farms. The farmer took the live cow to an independent slaughter house and we would tell the butcher how we wanted the meat cut. I recall that most of it went into burger, of which we used a lot, as I was growing up. Now a days I butcher deer and bear, pigs and lambs and chickens and other poultry. I do not do cattle, as I do not believe that my hoist could handle an animal that large. Besides I do not own a band saw. We cut every thing by hand.

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## Wise Old Owl

Wow great posts - going out to do the research tommorrow on the road... - wasn't looking for a lot of steaks... just meat.

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## edr730

You can go to a livestock auction too. Of course whatever kind of animal you buy, it will be live. You can feed it some good feed for a while at home first if you want to.

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## LowKey

Eee... never really liked old dairy cow. Not much good for anything other than hamburger and it has a strange taste to it. 
You really want a steer. And you want someone that knows how to hang it to age it properly before getting it cut, preferably temperature controlled.

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## Wise Old Owl

> You can go to a livestock auction too. Of course whatever kind of animal you buy, it will be live. You can feed it some good feed for a while at home first if you want to.


uh no I am 1 acre residential...

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## nell67

> Excellent post and a must read for those that want to buy meat this way.....Rep sent.
> BTW that 1/2 isn't all steaks and roasts.....


I tried to rep him twice now today, but I have to spread the love. :Ohmy:  :Confused1:

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## crashdive123

Got the rep covered.

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## hunter63

> uh no I am 1 acre residential...


So I suppose that hanging up a dead cow in the yard on the tractor with the bucket.....would be looked at kinda weird?
Calls made.....LOL...No one would mess with you.
Remember to use vegetable oil for the chain on the chain saw.

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## edr730

When I was younger I would go to the livestock auction and pick up lots of different animals to take home to slaughter and butcher. I'd also raise some myself and knew people who raised what I wanted. We probably went through a dozen deer as well with hunting, farm permits and road kill. I always carried a long sharp knife in the van for the road kills. All I usually took was the hind legs and the chops. 
One time, I managed to stuff a 450 lb young steer into the back of my '67 ford econoline van. It took some lifting and coaxing, but we got him in there. We cut him up, ground him up and he went in the freezer with everything else.

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## hunter63

Pssst....12 volt winch in the van....and a ramp.
18 volt battery chain saw.....

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## LowKey

Seems a shame to grind a whole young steer into hamburger...

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## edr730

Yes Hunter that would have been an easier way. At that age, I just used the yeah I think I can get him in there method.  If it didn't work right away I'd use the lift harder push harder method. 
We got him in and roped him off from the front though. It all went pretty good till something happened with the two cars in front of us. I had to slam on the brakes and the steer stretched the rope and his head was right between us. I swerved to the right and the steer kissed me. I swerved back left and he bounced off my buddy. I thought for a second he was going through the windsheild. After that, everything went OK.

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## hunter63

> Yes Hunter that would have been an easier way. At that age, I just used the yeah I think I can get him in there method.  If it didn't work right away I'd use the lift harder push harder method. 
> We got him in and roped him off from the front though. It all went pretty good till something happened with the two cars in front of us. I had to slam on the brakes and the steer stretched the rope and his head was right between us. I swerved to the right and the steer kissed me. I swerved back left and he bounced off my buddy. I thought for a second he was going through the windsheild. After that, everything went OK.


LOL...I hear ya....the thing we do as we attempt to grow up.

Couple of us were heading out to the saloon on a Fri. night ...hit a deer along the road......thought is was dead.

Loaded it in the trunk...gonna take it to one of the guys barn.......and clean and hang it up.

Came to...I guess,..... and was kicking the crap out of the inside of the trunk on his '57 Chevy....
Backed the car up to the tractor shed,... pulled the folding door down....turned the key on the trunk......deer came flying out and squirted out the little triangle of light when the back window meets the trunk.

3 bounds and *gone*......

Sometimes things seem like a good idea....at the time.

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## edr730

Hunter, I can imagine. Those things can get lively in a hurry. I'm sure there were three sets of big eyeballs that night. I bet it didn't do the trunk any good either.
I almost had that happen to me. I had a van so I threw the deer I hit in the back. Down the road he started kicking. I know my eyes got big when I looked at my friend and said, "grab the wheel". I jumped in back and grabbed the first heavy thing I could find and put him back down. I had no desire to be a casulty of a deer jumping around inside with me inside with him. 
Lowkey I think I did keep the chops....don't really recall anymore. I do remember thinking that it wasn't anything like a deer to skin, cut up and debone. It took me a lot longer than I expected and after deboning I was ready to just run it over to the butcher and have him grind it up. I wanted to separate the inside hind leg muscle from the outside and the middle but they wouldn't separate like a deer. He was on the thin side too. So, I decided get er done.

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## Wise Old Owl

> So I suppose that hanging up a dead cow in the yard on the tractor with the bucket.....would be looked at kinda weird?
> Calls made.....LOL...No one would mess with you.
> Remember to use vegetable oil for the chain on the chain saw.


No I used to hang the deer out front gutted with a small stone "RIP Bambi" as the school bus went by..... 

Here is what it might look like.....

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## nell67

> Hunter, I can imagine. Those things can get lively in a hurry. I'm sure there were three sets of big eyeballs that night. I bet it didn't do the trunk any good either.
> I almost had that happen to me. I had a van so I threw the deer I hit in the back. Down the road he started kicking. I know my eyes got big when I looked at my friend and said, "grab the wheel". I jumped in back and grabbed the first heavy thing I could find and put him back down. I had no desire to be a casulty of a deer jumping around inside with me inside with him. 
> Lowkey I think I did keep the chops....don't really recall anymore. I do remember thinking that it wasn't anything like a deer to skin, cut up and debone. It took me a lot longer than I expected and after deboning I was ready to just run it over to the butcher and have him grind it up. I wanted to separate the inside hind leg muscle from the outside and the middle but they wouldn't separate like a deer. He was on the thin side too. So, I decided get er done.


My youngest sister did this at 16, only she didn't put it in the trunk, but in the back seat of a four door car, turned around  headed home. Halfway there, it came too and was kicking the heck out of the back of the driver seat. She did NOT stop until she got home. slipped out her door, yelled for dad to bring his gun. Deer had a broken leg and wasn't going to run too far, but she did not open the door until he had his sights set on the deer. I think she was crazy, and good this it was ONLY a button buck......

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## edr730

Yes Nell, I think she had a little luck on her side. I can imagine a bigger deer without broken legs jumping around in the front seat while she just barely has time to slam on the breaks and dive out while the car slowly rolls into the ditch. She just might get out without getting kicked if she was quick. I bet she would have been quick too if a deer was jumping around close to her. 
I used to feel like the guy that keeps getting struck by lightning with hitting deer. I've always been a very slow driver, I knew the areas to be careful of the deer, I knew when one passed in front of you that you have to look for the second one....I still hit them. More often they run into me. 
One night about working at night about 2-3 hours before daylight, driving home, tired, near the airport, nobody on the road, a deer run into my mirror on my side then off the front. Maybe I went over him. I don't know. I went down the road trying to decide what to do. I went back and the deer was in the road with it's head up and before I made a decision it took off. That suited me just fine. I was too tired to mess with it. I went down the road, turned around and on my way though the little one ran into my fender, spun around in front of me, hobbled a bit and run off too. I had the van stopped again and I thought WTH. I was glad to get going without any extra work. Since I was going so slow I just got a broken mirror and a couple dents. They thinned the herd out since those days. It's a bit like, if you want another deer, you buy another license. Haven't hit one in quite a few years.

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## Wise Old Owl

My wife is attempting to talk me out of it...

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## Arsoy

I am trying to decide whether is it worth it. Online I found I can buy half a cow for about $1,100, which after processing will yield me about 150lbs of meat, coming out to about $7.30 a pound.

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## Rick

I'd go for it. That's a bargain in Istanbul.

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

Man! I wonder how many hundred pounds of soup bone you get with the meat?

Alan

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