Our first Shetland beef - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Monday 4 November, 2013

by Rosemary at 9:08am in Cattle 3 comments Comments closed

Our freezer is now stocked up with our first Shetland beef.

We bought Henry in October 2011 as a weaned calf for £460; he was calved in the April of that year. We picked him up in Aberdeen. Over the winter of 2011/12, he was outwintered with Breeze and Blizzard on hay and molassed mineral buckets.

During the summer of 2012, Henry grazed with Breeze and Blizzard and their calves, and the bull while he was in residence. He was housed over the winter of 2012/13 with the cows and calves, in various permutations, and fed mainly straw, some hay and molassed mineral buckets.

In spring 2013, Henry was turned out with George, Breeze’s 2012 born bullock, and Storm, our young bull, after we bought him in April 2013.

Henry the week before slaughter.

We took Henry to the abattoir in Dunblane on 26th September. He was 352kg deadweight at 28 months. The butcher said that the carcase was “a bit fat but a good traditional beef carcase”. Because of the good fat cover, the carcase could be hung for 28 days.

We picked up the beef on 1st November; we sold eight beef boxes of around 12.5kg each, at £12.50/kg. Each box had a mix of joints, steaks, stewing / braising cuts, mince, beef burgers and Lorne sausage. Cash income from the beef sales is, therefore, around £1250. We also have our own beef, including a magnificent three rib roast for the festive period. We calculate that we got about 158kg of “beef in the box”, worth around £1975.

Shetland beef box.

The slaughter and butchery costs were £560. This includes slaughter, transport from abattoir to butcher, cutting, waste removal and making beef burgers and Lorne.

So, the value of the beef was £1975; less £560 for slaughter / butchery, £460 to buy the calf, mileage to pick him up, take him to slaughter, pick up the beef and deliver it to a few folk (say, 400 miles at 45p / mile) £180, leaving £775 to cover the costs of maintaining Henry for two years.

It’s difficult to unravel this because the hay and straw we buy feeds other cattle, ponies and sheep but I’m reasonably confident that we turned a profit on Henry.

Of course, it’s not a living – the discussion that we have a lot about smallholding – but the exercise has met with our objectives of providing us with prime beef, while producing  a cash income to cover our costs. But don’t even start to think about the capital we’ve invested in the property over the two years Henry was here. :-)

We hope that the folk that bought the beef enjoy it; we’ve already had some very positive comments. Some has gone to a local artisan pie company, so we hope that this might be the start of a good working relationship and that we’ll be doing our bit to promote the Shetland breed by getting it on folk’s plates, where it belongs.