Skip to main content

Homekill beef - is it worth it?

We got another steer killed a few weeks ago now, and I weighed all the cuts of meat so that I could work out the approximate value of the meat and compare the cost of raising a steer to the cost of buying all the meat from the butcher.   My article has been published on the Farm Style website, which is a FREE online community for small and hobby farmers to learn everything about farming and country living.



If you want to know more, head over the Farm Style to read the the article and then come back here for comments and questions.  Do you raise steers?  Is it worth it?  Do you have any questions?

More about our home butchering here.

  The Self Sufficient HomeAcre  monday's homestead barn hop

From The Farm Blog Hop
Labels:

Comments

  1. Horst in EdmontonAugust 14, 2013 at 8:55 AM

    Yes I do think it's worth doing the kill yourself and then cutting up the carcass.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Barb.August 14, 2013 at 9:04 AM

    We grow and process our own too. Son is a butcher so that comes in handy when it's time to do the cutting up. Either him or my husband do the kill. Quick and stressfree. I like that I know the animals are well looked after and fully grass fed.

    Barb.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousAugust 14, 2013 at 1:13 PM

    BOO WHO. GRANNY USA.

    IT'S LATE SO I'LL CHECK OUT YOUR BLOG TOMORROW. I BET YOU HAVE ALOT TO OFFER ON HERE.I DO HOPE YOUR HOUSE IS COMING ALONG. SLEEP WELL AND GOOD NIGHT.

    GRANNY USA

    ReplyDelete
  4. city garden country gardenAugust 14, 2013 at 4:51 PM

    Great article Liz. I thought you were actually being very conservative with your price estimates. To buy high quality grass-fed beef that's been treated as well as I'm sure your steers have been, is much more expensive per kg at farmers markets, so you're probably saving even more money by comparison to that market. Not sure what I'd do with 40kg of sausages though, that would last for years in our house!

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownAugust 14, 2013 at 5:18 PM

    That was a well written article. Im sure it would be invaluable for someone considering on whether it was worth keeping cattle. That is an awful lot of meat in the freezer. Tell me, do you have a geni on stand by in case of power outage? I sure wouldnt want to lose it.

    I have many memories of coming home from school to find my Mum with half a carcass on the big family table and a meat cleaver raised above her head before coming down onto the big block with a thud. You soon learn to respect your Mum when you see her doing stuff like this. I dont think my son will have the same appreciation though he did just expect me to lug a 25kg bag of seed to the backyard. On one hand its a compliment because he knows his Mum can do that but on the other hand he should be offering. So confusing these days.....

    ReplyDelete
  6. SandraAugust 14, 2013 at 9:53 PM

    We have raised our own steers for many years. We buy calves from a neighbor and raise them on grass.
    We do not butcher them ourselves.
    We have figured out the cost and it is definitely cheaper to raise our own, especially comparing the cost to organic, grass fed beef.

    ReplyDelete
  7. MishiAugust 14, 2013 at 10:49 PM

    Thanks for the price breakdown! It's something we'd like to do eventually, and this (plus the other posts like the ones about tanning) make it seem both doable and worthwhile.

    ReplyDelete
  8. thingsforboysAugust 15, 2013 at 1:23 PM

    Liz, everything you blog about is so interesting! Now I have a craving for curried sausages!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Lucy HouseAugust 18, 2013 at 5:17 PM

    Good article Liz. Another bonus of doing your own is that you have total control of all the inputs. I love the way you've broken up the cuts. We never bother to do that but it's really interesting to see. I love good sausages!

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousAugust 22, 2013 at 10:10 AM

    Good analysis. Thanks for sharing!

    Please join us again Thursday at:
    The HomeAcre Hop

    ~Ann

    ReplyDelete
  11. MichelleAugust 28, 2013 at 6:47 PM

    What breed of cattle do you have? Have you done much research on taste of different breeds?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks, I appreciate all your comments, suggestions and questions, but I don't always get time to reply right away. If you need me to reply personally to a question, please leave your email address in the comment or in your profile, or email me directly on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com

Popular posts from this blog

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here .  You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!).  I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months.  I'm very excited to share this new website with you!
4 comments
Read more

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog.  I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people.  I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts.  I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo.  Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about chicken tractor
15 comments
Read more

How to make soap with beer (and tallow)

I may  have mentioned this before.... soap making is addictive!  Once you start, you just want to keep making more soap.  And not the same soap, you want to try all sorts of different soaps.  I made the mistake of joining a facebook group called Saponification Nation  and now my facebook newsfeed is full of glorious soaps, in all colours and shapes, which makes it even harder to resist the urge to experiment.  One soap that kept popping up a few weeks ago was soap made with beer. I generally prefer not to use ingredients just for the sake of it, I like to know that they are adding something to the properties of the finished soap.   As you know, I don't like to use artificial ingredients either (colours or fragrances).   When I read about beer in soap I found out that beer adds sugar to the mixture, which increases lather.  I use tallow in my soap, which has limited lather, so anything that adds lather could improve the soap.  It also contributes a tan or brown colour to
6 comments
Read more