Grass Finished Beef
Our grass finished beef is sold in bulk as a whole, half, or split half of beef. Bulk purchase provides you a much more cost effective outlet for purchasing quantities of beef.
Spring Beef Versus Fall Beef:
We are currently working to shift more of our annual harvest to spring beef from fall beef, as the spring in Oregon is when we have the best lush grass conditions, providing the best conditions to finish the animals and provide an excellent product to our customers.
 | Spring Beef: The animals harvested in the spring will be slightly older at 23-26 months of age, resulting in a more mature carcass. As the animals mature, they develop more marbeling, the flecks of fat throughout the beef. The marbeling is what gives the beef the excellent flavor it is known for. Thus, as more mature animals, the beef will be larger with a slightly higher fat content, both in marbeling and fat on the surface of the cuts. In traditional terms, spring beef would be more likely to grade high "choice" to "prime" than our fall beef. As far as the weight of the beef is concerned, you could expect an average spring half of beef to be approximately 50 pounds heavier than the fall beef. |
| Fall Beef: The animals harvested in the fall are younger at 18-20 months of age, and thus will have a slightly smaller carcass, and a lower fat and marbeling percentage. Although leaner than our spring beef, we still target an animal that could grade "choice" to high "choice". We plant special crops to finish our fall beef on, and thus they go through the same finishing process, just on different forages. |
Bulk Beef - The Best Buy!
Our bulk grass finished beef is sold as a whole animal, by the half, or a "split half". To comply with state regulation, the sale is actually of the live animal, and then we arrange processing by a licensed processing plant. The weight of the animal is based upon the "hanging weight" of the meat that reaches the processing facility. Our prices for 2008 are:
Whole Beef - 2.20 $/Lb
Half Beef - 2.30 $/Lb
Split Half - 2.40 $/Lb
In addition to the above price, you will pay the processor for their on farm processing fee, as well as for cutting and wrapping at .43 $/Lb.
If you choose to purchase a whole or half of beef, you will provide instructions to the processor of exactly how you want the meat cut and packaged, to assure you get the correct serving sizes for your family and that your favorite steaks are including in the processing order.
We also sell "split halves". If a full half of beef is too much for you, we can provide you with a quarter of a beef as a split half. Unfortunately, the back quarter of the beef contains different cuts than the front quarter, so simply purchasing a quarter doesn't give you the full selection of cuts you would expect. Thus, our split halves are partially from the front quarter, and partially from the back quarter, for a full selection. If you choose to purchase a split half, then you will not be able to provide specific cutting instructions, but instead will be required to take our normal cutting and packaging specifications (two steaks per package, hamburger in one pound packages, etc).
One concern we often hear is how much storage space is needed for the beef. Typically, a split half of beef will require about four cubic feet of storage space in your freezer, and a half of beef will require about eight cubic feet.
The amount of meat you will receive depends, of course, on the size of the animal, and thus can't be specifically designated beforehand. Typically, the "hanging weight" of the beef will be about 60% of the live weight of the animal. From that weight, you can expect to receive about 65 to 70% of the hanging weight in packaged meat due to trim loss, bones, etc. The following chart estimates what you would normally expect from a typical 1,100 pound live weight animal. Please remember this is only an estimate, as each animal works out differently.
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