Price of meat almost doubled here...do you folks have a meat processor nearby?

[Jstpssng]

Does anyone process their own meat? I've seen some pretty cool devices made to pluck chicken feathers on youtube.

But whatabout butchering a whole cow/calf/steer?

Check out some of the things which TnAndy does, it's pretty impressive. I don't know if he does cows but he does do pigs. About the biggest thing I've cut up is a few deer. The hardest part is having someplace cool enough to hang an animal that size for a week.

 

[Diggin It]

Question: If you take your own animal(s) to a processor, how (other than trust and reputation) do you know you're getting YOUR animal back, ONLY your animal and ALL of your animal?

 

[aczlan]

Does anyone process their own meat? I've seen some pretty cool devices made to pluck chicken feathers on youtube.

But whatabout butchering a whole cow/calf/steer?

Never done a cow, have done deer, chicken and turkey before.

Aaron Z

 

[TnAndy]

Does anyone process their own meat? I've seen some pretty cool devices made to pluck chicken feathers on youtube.

But whatabout butchering a whole cow/calf/steer?

After many years of taking ours to various local processors, with varying results ( I still remember walking in to seeing one of my steers being cut up with a guy smoking right over the top of doing it...yeah, first and last time there ! ), I finally set us up a room on the back of the garage (12x22) with a home made walk-in cooler run by a window AC.

3 pigs in halves hanging in the cooler:

Steer in quarters:

I kill the animals where their pen is, then haul with the tractor front loader up to my shop area where I skin/gut because I have water there to keep everything washed down. Then I haul the split halves on up to the house....in the case of pork halves, we use a hand cart to sit them on, and roll into the cooler for hanging. In the case of a beef, I have to cut into quarters because I usually let my beef get in the 1200-1400lb range before slaughter, so a quarter usually weighs in around 200lbs and that's all I can handle by hand. I made a wood table I sit in the driveway, let a half down on it, cut into 2 pcs, put one on the hand cart and roll in the cooler.

Cutting the front quarter of a steer loose from the rear quarter:

Whole pork loin:

Center cut chops and couple roasts:

For raising meat chickens, after hand plucking for years (and I'm really slow at it), finally built a "whiz-bang" plucker which does a great job. Scald the bird for a minute, drop in the plucker and it takes virtually every feather off in 30-40 seconds.

 

[newbury]

<snip>
For raising meat chickens, after hand plucking for years (and I'm really slow at it), finally built a "whiz-bang" plucker which does a great job. Scald the bird for a minute, drop in the plucker and it takes virtually every feather off in 30-40 seconds.

is there similar for turkey and geese?

 

[jeff9366]

Obviously you have no clue as to what beef packers have been doing to farmers and consumers lately.

I am an occasional beef consumer. I have not noticed changes in the beef retail market significant to me. Certainly, selection is less at present. I buy choice beef at regional grocer Winn-Dixie.

My understanding is that slaughtering and packing are now concentrated in three large companies, all with public shareholders. I am too old for individual stocks, but in the past I might have purchased processor's shares and recommended processor's shares to ranchers and farmers in order for ranchers and farmers to reap a share of beef packer's profits.

My father owned an upscale meat market in Seattle, where I was an indentured servant, cutting meat, until I could join the Navy at age seventeen in 1965. My experience as a beef/veal/pork/lamb/turkey processor and sausage maker does not qualify as "lately".

 

[Molalla1]

Obviously you have no clue as to what beef packers have been doing to farmers and consumers lately.

:thumbsup: . . .

 

[Molalla1]

Andy . . . our lockers look very similar, just have some elk also.

 

[coobie]

price gouging during an emergency is illegal, this should be reported!!..

Now thats funny.Good luck..LOL

 

[Jstpssng]

I haven稚 eaten much beef in years, my pork and poultry is enough meat for me. However, once in a while I get the urge for a nice, juicy, grilled steak. Around here you can buy the lower quality steaks for nearly half the price of hamburger; if I still ate a lot of the latter I would be buying top round steak and grinding it.