I took delivery yesterday of the beef from the two angus heifer calves I bought in March of this year. The following are pictures and a brief report of raising them, the expenses involved and the result.
These are the calves at the time of purchase. I bought them in March and they were born in November. I had been searching for angus steer calves which all seemed to be in the price range of $750 dollars for feeder calves. These were heifers but were $500 each. I grabbed them quick. The only problem I had with them is that they were pretty flighty. They never did come to trust me too much. I figured they had good reason. :-) (Apologies that the pictures in sideways. I do not know how to correct that on the steemit format.)
They're just about at weight here. the calves ate only grass clippings from my yard (that I had fermented to silage) some alfalfa hay and some silage I gathered free from a man in my church who owns a lawn service business. They also had 100 lbs. of grain the last two weeks.
Here is one of the calves after slaughter. Slaughter service cost $75 per animal and was very humane and efficient. The service used a 22 long rifle. The calves had come to him with a bucket of grain. He shot the first one which went down immediately. The other calf jumped slightly to the side and stood there. The slaughter service waited a moment until she had become very calm and shot her. Both calves went down immediately. All four knees buckled simultaneously and the animal was dead. There was no struggle whatsoever.
The Slaughter service hangs the animal in quarters in his truck on site. He then delivers it to the butcher of choice. I used a butcher name Custom Meats, mostly because it is the closest to my home. It's only 5 miles away. His price for cut and wrapping is $.60 per lbs hanging weight. There is, he said, a 30% loss of weight in the cut and wrapping process.
Once the meat had hung 10 days it was cut and wrapped and place in my freezer. What you see is all these calves. Beside this we also have a box full of bones I plan to cook down for broth. I also want to attempt to grill bone marrow and see what that tastes like.
This is the breakdown of expenses from purchase to packaging. The only thing not included is the cost of the new freezer. The total cost of the beef is $5.30 per lbs.
