Can anyone give me a quick "formula" for sharing the cost of purchasing, care and butchering of a calf (or two, probably two).
I have two friends that want to go in with me on this. I have the land and will do most (ok - all) the labor, and they will pay their share and pick up the butchered meat and the end of the deal.
I was thinking maybe they pay for the cost of the calves, and I pay for feed, shots, etc. Then, we go in three equal shares on the butchering costs. That sound fair?
*** What we've got here is failure to communicate ***
We buy dairy bottle calves at about 1 week old. To butcher at 22 months I have about $800.00 in them. $50.00 for the calf, $50.00 milk replacer, $50.00 for vet bills, $300 in hay, $300 in Grain, and $50.00 in misc shavings, wormer, ect. I would hit them up 1 for hay and 1 for grain. If you castrate them yourself you can save vet bills, Most of my beef animals have never seen a vet. I buy grain bulk so yours may be a little higher percentage and hay is a huge variable. I have also bought beef calves weaned for up to $500.00 and they will dress a little higher but they cost more to start. All that being said I pay all the expenses for the animals I raise for people and then make them pay in the end. It takes a little paperwork to keep track of expenses but I keep good records anyway so I know where I stand. I am always worried about loosing someone elses animal. These are some of our beef animals this year. Sorry I'm so long winded.
Eric, Labor and responsibility is a BIG part of the picture when raising just a couple steers. They have to be tended irrespective of the weather or what is on TV or how tired you are or how hot, rainy, cold or windy it is. If the water source freezes up you have to break the ice for them and on and on.
If your friends pay for the calves and about 80-90% of ALL costs, including processing and take an equal share of the packaged beef you would NOT be taking advantage of them.
Of course they may not see it that way and may have the idea that you just turn the calves loose for several months and magically through benign neglect they grow up healthy, commit suicide on request and fall apart into recognized cuts of marbled tender beef.
(See also, the "Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" where a genetically enhanced cow comes to the table, points out various cuts of beef on her body, then says she'll just pop out back and commit suicide and the chef will be right out with your order.)
The arrangement you seek is fraught with social danger. Without expectation there is no disappointment but your friends will have expectations and the expectations are likely NOT WELL GROUNDED in reality.
If you went to the sale barn and bought animals ready for slaughter and paid to have them processed and the three of you shared equally in your cost, time, and labor then anyone could see the division was fair. If you alter that scenario and buy weeners (freshly weened calves) to raise the end result has as much value but the cost is variable due to various random factors. If your friends will agree that you will not be responsible to pay more than buying live beef and having it processed but can get off cheaper if the actual costs ate less then that may be a fair arrangement.
It is unreasonable that you should take on a disproportionate degree of risk. What if one of the calves dies or gets sick and requires lots of Vet expense? Could you be left holding the bag or otherwise be placed in a bad position if something goes wrong?
Oh by the way... you realize that you won't save much if any money compared to going to Waly World and buying packaged beef. There are other considerations besides price, of course. For one thing you can raise beef with no growth hormone implants. You can control what they eat. Commercial beef is fed antibiotics, traces of which are in the processed meat. If you want lean beef you can go mostly grass fed and so on and so forth depending on our desires.
If this is to be a purely money saver then be prepared to work for free and not be appreciated but not save much money (AT BEST) and to be disgustingly abused if things go awry.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Many years ago when we first moved to an acreage in Alberta some of the neighbours though feeding out a calf or piglet was the way to save real money.
As I recall no one repeated the experience.
One fellow actually had to shoot his calf after it got out of the pen and could not be caught. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Pat has painted a very concise picture of the scenario involved. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
<font color="blue"> </font color> YEAP Pat pretty well summed it UP but remember he was just sugar coating the actually events! A couple of things I think he left out was "don't name the bovine & don't let wifey & kids near it!" Another thing that happens is that YOU get all those cuts of meat that YOU don't use! <font color="blue"> </font color>
My Dad normally had 20 or 30 head on his place and kinda raised them for fun more than anything. We never butchered any of our own stock except one time. Dad decided he was gonna raise one for himself and feed it like he wanted. Picked out a nice steer and began hand feeding it and giving it extra cubes ect. Named it Bully as I recall. Well came time for old Bully to get made into steaks. Took him to the cutter got the meat back. I think Dad took one bite out one steak. Said I ain't eatin Bully. And gave all the rest of the meat away.
All of this reminds me of a couple of other fellows' experiences.
Quite a few years ago, a fellow who worked for me, and a friend of his, rented a stock trailer, went to the auction barn, bought a steer, and took it directly to a slaughter house. They not only did not save any money, but his story about the experiences of two city boys loading a wild steer into a trailer in something more than half a day was quite entertaining. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]
Also, several years ago, my younger brother and a friend (pastor of his church) bought 2 calves and raised them to butcher. With a great deal of work in all kinds of weather (in Washington state), he said he figured they saved about 2 cents a pound. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] That is, of course, if they didn't figure anything for their work and misery. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]
Needless to say, neither of them ever intended to try that again. But personally, I think it was a great educational experience for them. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]
Seriously, guys...what do you really think??
Wow, lots to think about on this deal. I will admit I was interested in doing it mostly for my own education, and some for good beef. We bought two horses a while back, and I made it through a winter with them, so I thought I'd try cows next. I was mainly getting my friends involved to keep my start-up costs down. Maybe I'll sleep on it for a year or two.
*** What we've got here is failure to communicate ***
Eric, I wasn't trying to prevent your doing it, just mentioning some things you may not have considered. I was trying to put it into a reasonable perspective and given the comments on my post I guess I did OK.
We named the big Angus bull, Curly because he has really curly coat on his forehead. One of the heifers got named butterball because she was so fat when we got her as a weener. The others are named Zero, One, Two, Three, and so forth to match their ear tags. It is often said if you name it you won't eat it. If we ever retain any steers for ourselves instead of sending them to auction and want to name them the names will be such as Hamburger, Steak, Roast, and the like.
One of my friends feeds out his own beef knowing he doesn't save money but has control of animal health, condition, and feed. It is important to him that the animal is not full of antibiotics, growth hormones, and such. Another friend participates in slaughter at his dad's (99 years old and still raising cattle.) He and his brother do it because they have "ALWAYS" done it with their dad. After the dad passes on it is unlikely that either of them will continue to slaughter their own.
I can't promise that I will never take one of mine to a processor but I haven't so far and have no current plans to do so. It is a lot of hassle. It takes considerable freezer space, yours or rented space. It was mentioned previously you get ALL the cuts whether you like them or not. Oxtail?
If I were to have one of mine processed I would get the cuts I wanted, some stew meat and the rest ground as hamburger and really course ground for chili. There are lots of cuts we would just rather have as hamburger. For us, it is a better deal to just buy at the market. If an emergency disrupted our normal food distribution for sufficient time, I would eventually get around to eating my beef.
An acquaintance of mine has a fair sized spread and runs a lot of registered Angus stock. He is into "show cattle" registered Angus. He sells pedigreed bulls, replacement heifers, show calves, and such. He and his wife own a small restaurant. They do not use their own beef, not even culls. With his own beef he wouldn't get the ratio of different cuts he needs, steak serving sizes would not be uniform, it just doesn't work.
If your friends can understand why they need to pay 80-90% of all expenses and share the packaged beef equally then it could be worth it to you to have the adventure.
The main downside cost wise is economy of scale. Big packing houses with production lines cut a lot of beef in a hurry and add moderate cost. Custom butchering costs make it difficult to compete with commercial beef. If you really want an adventure, slaughter, cut, and wrap your own beef.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Sorry, nothing quick here either. 1 alternative is to get a calf, personally i would go with weened since i like my sleep in larger chunks but that is a personal decision. Right now have mom and calf (and a couple of dads as well) so the weaning is done by mommy and the calves get nice milk until they have teeth.
Start an accounting (since you have not done this before it will be a real eye opener), at least for the first one. Enter the usual expenses and then figure out what your time is worth realistically, i TRY and use $10/hr. Sounds cheap and it is since that is without benefits. You could even keep a running total and meet with friends once in a while to up date them. I am guessing after waiting about 2yr and maybe having been asked to help a couple times the meat in the foam containers will start to look better and better.
When the happy day has arrived, hopefully it will just walk onto the truck/trailer and be on its way and there will be a processing fee to add to your running total.
I thought we were not going to discourage this poor soul from trying it out? Butchering your own? I had a hard enough time just doing a deer! Would not even consider it.
Nice thing about the custom butcher is that you can be more sure you are getting YOUR own beef back and not a mixture and a guesstimat.
I have a buyer recently for a yearling. Price: $1 on the hoof plus processing. I deliver, they pick up and pay processing at that time. Will see if there is a bite, if not i am getting low anyway.
Definitely do not name them or let it out of your mind that the beef in the store comes from some animal just as cute as yours, just you and most others do not see that side of it and tend to ignore it.
IF you can get the butcher to accept a DOA ( know there are rules and such, but some will come out and down it for you so it is certified and such) that will taste the best. An animal that has been chased around and stressed to put in a trailer will taste like it, why go thru all that work just to mess up at the very end. A good butcher will let the animal settle down before starting butcher. But how could a cow 'settle down' while others of the species are there and have been killed a left their scent behind?? Beef i have done died so fast the grain was still being swallowed and the rest of the herd did not even jump. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
No fun, change the rules!!!
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