Here's the Beef

Videos and photos surface regularly about how mistreated livestock can be, and that is so true, especially when it comes to corporate/factory farms.  Many are heading toward a vegan diet or giving up meat because of the price, or the uncertainty of what kind of meat it actually is.  Then there are the religious folk who are trying to sort through the proper processing methods and whether the blood has been drained properly.  I have a fairly good solution for all of that.  This is the fifth year I've been raising my own butcher calves.  The great thing is, it's cost effective because I'm not vying and buying angus.  Bottle angus calves are incredibly expensive!

Bottle dairy bulls don't finish out quite as full as the meat breeds, but they are less than a third of the original investment, which at this point amounts to hundreds of dollars.  Here's the basic differences in dollars and cents and finished product.  Grassfed jerseys and angus will weigh about 850-900 and 1000-1250 pounds respectively between 18 - 24 months.  The jersey will dress out around 400 pounds of meat.  The angus will dress over 500.  The milk replacer, is minimal for me, because my goats provide the milk, but if purchasing, any breed of bottle calves will require about $125.00 in milk replacer.  The grind is leaner on the dairy bull, but the steaks are smaller.  I don't castrate, so that does prohibit the same fleshing out, as seen in steers of any breed.

Here's the bottom line with the bottom dollar.  Bottle dairy bulls are less than $250.00 three days old.  Angus bottle bulls are about $750.00 at that same age.  Add $125.00 for the milk replacer and figure hay for at least one winter.  If I process the beef myself, I save between $100.00 and $150.00.  When I home process, I can't let them get that big and handle them with the equipment I have, so the last year, I let them get bigger and paid to process.

These two are just a little over a year old, so they still have about 6 more months of growing to do.  They have shelter, but they free range.

My jerseys, if I bought milk replacer would be about four hundred pounds of meat for less than $500.00.  Five hundred pounds of angus beef is about $1000.00.  For me, that extra hundred pounds just isn't worth the double price.

The Cost of Beef

I don't raise cattle, per se, here in Goshen.  I buy two bottle dairy bulls, raise them on goat's milk, then grass, with the goal being organic beef.  Since they are dairy calves, they don't pack on the weight like angus, but the meat is quality.  Two calves grow better than just one, so one of my kids usually takes one and I keep one when the time comes for the freezer.  So far, in raising my own, and I save even more when I home process, but even in having them processed, the full cost of the meat has been less than two dollars a pound. That price includes the cost of the calf, the grass hay in the winter, and processing cost.  One year, I didn't winter them and processed them myself.  The price of that beef was less than a dollar a pound.

A friend of mine just posted to social media that she had bought some ground beef from a Dollar Store.  I had no idea that was even an option.  She didn't have anything good to say about the product and it was priced at nearly $6.00 a pound.  I was in my favorite grocery market the other day to purchase some cheese.  It is sliced fresh when ordered, so while I waited I looked over the meat case.  The price and quality of the beef was disheartening.  The beef was perhaps a notch above the average supermarket, but the prices caused me sticker shock.  I could not believe that regular ground beef, not chuck or round, just ground beef was nearly $5.00 a pound.

Steaks were completely beyond my idea of reasonable.  The better cuts were well over $10.00 a pound.  As I stood there hoping I was maintaining my "poker face" regarding the sticker shock, I continued to look at the next case which held pork.  I don't eat pork, but since doing the article on the Enviropig, I've kept track of the prices.  Something is severely imbalanced when it comes to the price of pork.  Bacon is nearly $6.00 a pound, while butterfly pork chops are less than $3.00 a pound.  Apparently people will buy bacon, regardless of the cost, but a butterfly pork chop is the same cut of swine that KC Strip and Rib eye are of beef.  Why would the "best cut" be so cheap?  Center cut pork chops which compare to T bone and Rib steaks were less than $2.00 a pound.  That's not to say, they are even edible, but just giving comparable cuts and prices.

Please hear me, I am not at all suggesting that pork should be ingested, but I include it in the report because beef is still skyrocketing and according to some research the enviropig will not be difficult to put into production.  In a nation in which most of the population considers pork to be edible, a real shift in price and availability could result in people simply buying what's cheap and it's not likely to be beef.

An added variable for the coming price of kosher meat.  The beef prices today are reflective of the cost of a calf two years ago, and the price of grain and hay.  Grain and hay have been relatively abundant, therefore inexpensive the past two years . . .  I noticed this year on craigslist that bottle calves seemed to be at a real premium price, then in speaking with the owner of the dairy, the other day, it was confirmed.  The price of bottle calves has more than doubled, this year from last.  Keep in mind, these are just dairy bulls, not angus or hereford.  Asking price for a two week old angus bottle bull is $800.00.  I can't begin to imagine what beef prices will be next year, or if ranchers will even be able to raise beef at this price.

The scales are getting ready to tip.  I don't know if that means the bottom falls out first on the farm, or the meat just sits in the grocery store, but the result will more than likely be much less beef on the American dinner table.