Discussions

Entertaining reading some posts. Cattle producer does not make one a butcher anymore than it makes a grain farmer a baker.

Yes Don, I agree. People's preferences can vary a lot. My point was that most steaks for sale had what I would call an excessive amount of fat, with very few steaks having very little fat. The excessive amount of fat is quite probably cut off of the steak at home either before or after cooking and it is waste/garbage. I realize that this has been done for a long time, but it looks like there is a lot more fat on the steaks than there has been in the past. This extra fat is extra weight on the steak and pure profit for the stores and wasted money out of the consumer's pocketbook. That is just as bad as the "moisture" enhanced meat with water injected into the meat to make it heavier so it looks like the customer is getting more, but it is actually just water. (Try buying frozen fish and frying it up. You can't fry it because you end up poaching it with all the water that comes out of the meat.)  
 
Yes, going to a butcher and telling them how you want your meat cut and wrapped is a very good option.

The problem with fat is that somewhere it is going to end up waste. When you fatten an animal you either go by so many days on feed or go out and eyeball the animal to try and figure out if it is ready. The thing is that I doubt if there's a single person that can grade an animal while it's still got the hide on it, the consumer can't, a butch cant , and even the people who feed them can't. The industry works with averages to determine the price that is going to be paid. Most of the cattle that we have delivered in recent years were delivered to American plants, and the basis for pricing is on a Y3, choice carcass, with a dressing percentage in the 60-61 percent range. The processors in this area sort of have to compete against that industry when buying cattle, why would a producer take a whole lot less just to sell local. The local processors are in competition to buy the animals as well as sell the meat. To remain in business they must get a certain dollar valve out of an animal, so by trimming extra fat off it would end up as waste to them, so even without the idea of HR the prices would have to rise.  
We have a cow calf operation, a backgrounder operation as well as the feedlot part of it. We have been selling fat cattle since 1974 and what we have learned is you produce what the consumer wants, and how you determine if you are doing that is by the price you get for your carcasses. We delivered to Burns in Brandon, plants in Ontario, Alberta as well as American plants, and every plant sends you a kill sheet where you can see if you are making the grade. Now we are marketing a certain amount of animals locally, and I am able to actually see the animals on the rail and talk about if what we're doing is what he wants, since the buyer is a butcher. When I ask about the animal and the butch says "perfect" I'm still not a butch but I'm doing something that he seems to be happy with.  
 
Zach I do have something else to say about the way so much of the meat is fat, but t will have to wait till a bit later, we have cows having calves right now.

ZachT said "I was looking at steaks the other day in a store in Bdn. I was amazed at how much fat there was on the steaks. No, it wasn't marbling, it was on the edges of the steaks. If the stores expect me to buy their meat, I want to pay for meat, not fat. I was able to find a couple of steaks with very little fat, which I did purchase. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bought any steaks. "

I agree with your conclusion. If they sell you beef that is not trimmed to your liking look for a new butcher.  
We all have different ideas on how we want our meat trimmed, but its our meat we pay for, not his trim. You don't have to be an expert to decide how you like your meat. I have been purchasing meat from farmers for 30 years, and have made up my own mind, what and how we like our meat. An EXPERT, is a has been, and a drip under pressure, by definition.LOL

Most people who are fattening cattle try to make some money doing it, but if the market turns sour most of us do the exact opposite to what maybe we should do. If you have an animal that is ready at 1350lbs, but prices are the craps, you sometimes just keep the animals on feed hoping for the prices to move up. Of the animal doesn't have the genetics to continue growing you end up with a whole bunch more fat through the meat as well as on the outer surface.  
 
I don't know if people check links out or not but I'll put in two links to show what has happened to the break even on cattle since October, as well as the Albera weekly cattle report, which if one checks through it shows how much heavier carcasses are this year.  
 
http://www.ontariobeef.com/markets/daily_reports/2016/20160401.pdf  
 
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$Department/deptdocs.nsf/all/sdd6247/$FILE/wklvstck_160401.pdf  
 

Get to know your butcher. If your not getting your meat cut, and trimmed to your liking, then find a different one.

In this discussion there was some comments about buying beef from a producer to save money. This is what we did, but learned something in the process. We bought a 1/4 and was told it weighed 212 lbs at $4.20/lb, which from the previous comments seemed a fair price. Picked up the meat yesterday and was given two boxes, which guessing was about 50 lbs. Got home and roughly weighed it and figured it was about 120 lbs. So, from thinking we were paying $4.20 for 212 lbs of meat, we ended up paying $7.40 for 120 lbs of mostly 70 lbs hamburger, 3 roasts, 4 sirloins, 6 rounds approx. Turned out to be mighty expensive hamburger meat since you can buy it on sale in store for $4/lb! Yes, we did ask for more ground meat, but again expecting it to be $4.20/lb.. From what I have read we paid for hanging weight, but typical cut weight is 80%, but this was 50%! I am curious on the previous posts if that was hanging price or net? Mostly our fault that we didn't ask questions, thus why I have posted this to help others ask the right questions so your not surprised like we were.

Dan Brown, as a consumer I feel I definitely DESERVE to enjoy beef at a reasonable price. When the crisis was going on a beef farmer from Souris hand delivered flyers house to house in my neighbourhood. There was a list of cuts & prices. My husband and I were so impressed that this guy was actually thinking outside the box we ordered a couple of hundred $'s worth of meat. It was very good beef, so we ordered more. Again we were pleased. Third time round, well I guess the border had reopened & we were told they wouldn't do it anymore as they got way more $ shipping their beef south. We would have gladly continued to be his customer but we were  
sure dumped quickly when he didn't need local support any more.

Just wondering if this was a hind quarter or what? If it was a hind, where are your T-Bones?

I am thinking they forgot to give you a box. Where are the Tbone steaks, where are the sirloin Tip Roasts? Where is the stew meat? I would be checking with someone... there should be more than 120lbs left over.

Wwhere did you find meat at 4.20 a lb. Need meat and want a good price.

toad said "Wwhere did you find meat at 4.20 a lb. Need meat and want a good price. "

As I said previously, we were told $4.20/lb, but that is hanging price. We ended up paying approx. $7.40/lb for that we brought home. There is another butcher north who is selling beef for $3.99/lb hanging.

I don't see the problem with a price like that. It's locally raised, humanely raised, humanely slaughtered, hormone and antibiotic free, raised without steroids, organic, vegan, only fed the greenest grass and the plumpest barley. Isn't that what every urban consumer wants these days? (End of sarcasm). Whatever you buy, buy good Canadian beef.

I think I would be going back and asking a few questions, I do know that places may quote a price of $4.20 per lb on a half, but do charge more if you take the rear quarter and not the whole half, reason being the rear quarter has the more expensive cuts. When a place quotes you $4.20 that price is likely from the weight of the half when it was hot, as a carcass cools and is aged there is a loss in weight, so right away your costs go up a bit.  
 
Some numbers that are sort of relevant if a person was to buy a live animal and have it turned into beef are a 1000 lb animal will likely only give you 460 lbs of retail cuts, which shows just how much waste there is in an animal, if a person can make use of the soup bones be sure to take them, even if your just going to let the dog chew on them.  
There should have been more meat on your rear quarter and I think I would be asking a few questions.  
 
When a person questions why farmers change what they do I can give you a example real quick. We has yearling cattle around last fall and instead of taking $1900-$2000 for them we decided to feed them out to make more money, I haven't sat down and figured out exactly how much money has been spent on feed to get these animals to market size and shape, but I do know that just on the animal alone we are looking at a loss of $300 or more with no feed cost involved. Losses like this make a person wonder about feeding cattle next year, and sometimes that saying a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush really applies.  
This thing about shipping cattle any direction over selling local does make me wonder, we have done it many times but you are looking a a pretty hefty freight bill on every animal and if I could have my way every animal we fatten would be sold locally. As producers we do see it from the other side, meat prices run up and long time customers no longer want to do business, and in a way that's what it comes down to, it's business.  
 
If anyone does have questions feel welcome to message me, cattle and beef sort of are my business and if I can help out and maybe make it a bit more affordable, well I'm all for it.