The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Topic started by: Cowgirl on August 01, 2015, 01:51:17 pm
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Our first steer went to AK Stoddart's in Ayr at the beginning of July and this is a small part of what we've got back from our obliging butcher at Afton Glen meats this morning. It was hard taking our steer to be slaughtered but the abattoir people couldn't have been any nicer and more helpful - they were fantastic. Private kill cost £60 and they hung the carcase for three weeks until the butcher collected it. He graded R4H with a carcase weight of 288 kg, so we were quite pleased with that, particularly as he was offspring of an AI bull born in 1971! Thought this information might be helpful for anyone else thinking of doing the same thing.
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Wow, that looks good to me :thumbsup:
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what does R4H mean
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It's all about carcasse classification.
See: http://www.mlcsl.co.uk/pdf/Beef%20Carcase%20Classification%2021Apr.pdf (http://www.mlcsl.co.uk/pdf/Beef%20Carcase%20Classification%2021Apr.pdf)
Carcasses are graded according to confirmation - it is well covered in meat in all the right places, and according to fat cover. The first letter refers to confirmation and the number and following letter indicate fat coverage.
Have a look at the pdf file, there's lots of info.
Sue
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Thanks for that link Factotum :thumbsup:
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Looks great, and your slaughter cost sounds very reasonable too. How much was your butchery?
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Butchery was £350, about what we had been quoted elsewhere, but he also fetched the carcase from the abattoir for no extra charge, which was a stumbling block for some, and vacuum-packed and labelled the meat.
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Great value, you must be really pleased :excited:
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Super. What age and breed of steer was it? Is the carcass weight the amount of meat you got or was there some waste from that?
I'm only asking as the last belted galloway steer I sent in was 2 years old and I got about 160kg of saleable meat from that.
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Ooh :thumbsup:
What does that equal roughly in terms of what you got? Looks like a lot of steak?
Never had or seen what you get back from butcher so am curious how it comes/in what breakdown of cuts
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He was 28 months, a Traditional (Original population) rare breed Hereford. They're quite similar to a Galloway really. Haven't added it up very accurately but the amount of useable meat is definitely somewhere between 180 and 200kg. The carcass weight includes bone. There is about 3 kg of fillet and 13kg of sirloin. There is a lot of popes eye and rump steak, not sure of exact amounts, also silverside, topside, shoulder steak and diced stewing steak. We chose not to mince too much - got about 25 kg . Also about 50 kg of sausage meat and 22 packs of burgers. You can tell the butcher what you want done with the meat, to a certain extent. We divided it into 10 kg mixed boxes.
Wasn't sure how I'd react to eating the meat, as he was a soppy, loveable beast that would always come to see you in the field. However I really enjoyed my steak tonight I have to say. Just told myself it's what his life was for, and said a prayer for him.
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Thank you :) Knowing roughly what you get is interesting and useful
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Forgot to mention the ribeye steaks - must be about 8 kg as there were a pair in each pack.
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Sounds like a really good beast - and your butchery was a bargain for that amount of meat!
My Jersey heifer graded -O3 (which is great for a Jersey, but nothing like as good as your Hereford - as you'd expect.) Deadweight was 192kg dw, of which I got approx. 106kgs butchered meat back. The butcher was amazing and managed to make up 9 x 10kg mixed boxes, and still have some good joints, mince, burgers and steaks for us.
My total kill & butchery costs, including vac packing and making up the 10kg boxes, was £350. The butcher collected the carcase from the abattoir along with his own for the shop.
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Thank you all for your comments. It was quite stressful but it has worked out well. I tried to find this information trawling the internet and had great difficulty finding it, so glad if it helps anyone. We won't have another steer ready until next summer as we only have a small number, so can relax a bit. For anyone who would like to see what a Traditional Hereford looks like, here is a photo of Fergus last September at 18 months old. RIP...
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That's a very shapey beast :thumbsup:
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Thank you! And he never saw any concentrate feeding in his whole life. Think they knew what they were doing back in 1971.... Incredible that these animals are now so rare - they were the most popular beef breed in the UK but just became unfashionable. Just checked the registrations for 2015 and so far it's only 289 calves since January. Yet the RBST say they are Category 5 ie there are 750 breeding cows? Where are the rest of the calves?
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Many bull calves will not get registered so that could double the calf numbers for the year.
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Could be but it still doesn't add up! Just don't think we can be complacent about the numbers and think everything is OK. Many breeders are elderly and likely to be giving up soon - we're in our sixties and we're "new" breeders. The breed needs new people!
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Sorry, excuse my ignorance, but what's the difference between your cattle and regular hereford cattle as there's tons of them isn't there?
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Our Herefords are the original English population, horned, with no imported bloodlines. Their pedigrees can be traced back to the 1800s. Their DNA is completely different from modern Herefords, which in this country are now mainly polled and of North American origin.
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Could I ask how much you would charge per kg or how much per box
Thanks
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It seems that most people charge in the region of £12 / kg for a mixture of meat from steaks to sausages and burgers - we decided that a box of 10 kg was a convenient size, and people who have had them seem happy with that. Our butcher made 16 packs and decided what to put in them, and we have what was leftover in the freezer for us.