The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Topic started by: PhillipWillie on January 03, 2015, 05:48:33 pm
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Has anyone ever done this? Was it worthwhile, or a waste of time?
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Yes I was the proud owner of a Dexter for 48 hours! He tasted gooood!
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Don't understand the question ..... do you mean home kill? and why wouldn't it be worthwhile?
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No, through the meat plant. Wasnt sure if it would be worth more selling him. Can you sell the meat?
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Without wanting to appear fascetious, depends what your costs will be. Transport of animal to abattoir; killing; transport of carcase to butcher; butchery costs - these seem to vary quite widely across the country.
Roughly, you can work on a killing out % of roughly 50% so a 500kg live beast will deliver 250kg deadweight. You will lose about 1/3 from deadweight to "in the box" so 175kg, but depends how fat it is, how good the conformation is, how long it's hung, how good the butcher is.
We sell beef boxes; so the carcase goes to the butcher to be cut and packed then we pick it up and deliver it to customers. We couldn't retail it like a shop because we don't have the facilities.
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We need some advice here. We have our first steer approaching killing weight in the spring - hopefully he will be about 550 kg. We don't want to do it on the farm. We have a butcher happy to do the cutting but my concern is the logistics of the slaughtering - which abattoir, how to transport him safely without him getting stressed, how well he will be treated and what regulations we have to adhere to. We are not "farm assured" - does that limit the choice of abattoir? Who will hang the meat and transport it? We really need to sort this out! Any advice gratefully received!
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I kill things here for the freezer and it really isn't too bad, as long as you have machinery to raise the carcass off the floor I would reconsider doing it at home