2003-12-11 - 8:09 a.m.
Well he's gone. We loaded up the steer and took him off about a week ago. He was pretty cooperative about it suprisingly. Liz did a good job fattening him up and he weighed in a 1200lbs. After he is slaughtered they will hang the sides in the cooler to age the meat a week or so before cutting it up. We used to sell sheep and steers to folks to have slaughtered but we quit after a number of them got mad. It's hard for folks to grasp that you only get back about 40 percent of the animals live weight back in meat. We can't sell meat leagally but we can sell a live animal and deliver it to the slaughter house for the buyer. Then they would deal with the slaughter house and pick up the meat. We would deliver an 800lb steer and when the buyer went to get the meat they would only get about 350lbs of cut and wrapped meat. We would try to explain this as carefully as we could to each buyer but some never got it. They figured if we left off an 800lb steer they should get 800lbs of meat and when they didn't tempers would flare.
The guy that owns and runs the slaughter house says he has that happen all the time. Someone will come with the first steer or pig or whatever that they have ever raised for slaughter and bring it to him. He will slaughter it, cut it up and wrap it and when thay come to get it they start asking where the rest of their meat is. He'll try to explain that animals have a lot of guts and their skin weighs a lot. Then he'll explain the losses of bone and trimmed fat when they cut it up. Most folks understand but a few refuse to accept it and go ballistic. He said he has been accused numerous times of stealing meat. He told me that folks have even called the law or the state Dept. of Agriculture a couple of times only to find out he was right. So when you go to the store and see that high priced steak and start to wonder why it costs so much remember that from a 1000lb steer you only get about 400lbs of meat. If the farmer got $1.00lb live weight, the final cut meat would be worth $2.50 before you add in the cost to slaughter and process the steer. Then you have to figure in transport costs and the cost to market it in the grocery store. At each point along the way the company invovled has to make a profit so by the time it reaches the consumer you have a steak at 6.00lb.
