I digress, Husband decided to haul water while I was gone. He worked for 3 hours, filling a wheel barrel with water by the house and dumping it out near the barn. Needless to say he was slightly grumpy when we returned home. The de-icer seems to work intermittently and that is causing the issues we are having. It can't keep up when it works in this manner. And we still haven't hit what is traditionally the coldest month of the year.
Yesterday Husband and I did a few run around chores. We decided to stop by the local Locker. Turns out it was a good thing to do. They are booked until Feb of 2012, but just happened to have a cancellation. Udies will go in on Feb 8th.
The price surprised us,. For full processing it would cost $0.55 per lb hanging weight. We had been hearing quotes of over $1 per pound elsewhere. And it would cost us the hide as well. Husband almost walked out at that point. The hide was a deal breaker, no matter how cheap the processing fee is. Our first butchered bull, we want to keep it, as husband wants to make it into a blanket as the winter hair is full and thick. The Locker said we can buy the hide back for $20. We talked with him for a bit, letting him know that the only reason we are going to use a locker is that we have no way of hanging Undies. This is were the Locker man informed us that for $50 they will kill, hang and cut into quarters.
Turns out for this, they will take an animal at anytime, no need for a set appointment. As it doesn't take as much time. We decided to go ahead and keep our appointment, but it is a good thing to know. I will need to make an appointment for Winston for next year while I am in there with Undies.
Husband says that we can purchase a meat band-saw with the money we save by doing our own cuts of meat. With think someone stole our saws all. There has been many thefts in the area, so it wouldn't surprise me at all. We can't find it, so we are assuming. The meat saw Husband is looking at costs about the same as the saws all, but comes with a grinder attachment.
Now that will make an interesting conversation piece for my kitchen.
9 comments:
Just a bit of advice, take it or leave it. We purchased one of those saw/grinders and while it worked great with the pork, the distance between the base plate and top of blade was to small for a beef hind quarter or shoulder. Spend the extra money and buy a commercial sized bandsaw and a separate grinder( 1/2 horse works well enough for us) Then be careful fingers come off easily!
I agree with Kelle. We had a meat processing market. It will really pay for itself if you get a commercial sized bandsaw. The smaller ones are more of a pain in the neck.
I don't know anything about butchering large animals (we only have chickens and rabbits), but that particular contraption looks way better than what my husband had to work with the one time we were gifted a deer that had been hit with a car (granted deer are considerably smaller than cows ;).
But I will say that the proper tools pay for themselves over their lives ;).
Why I am thinking about an old Sopranos episode when I read this?
We're thinking once we get to know them better to have one of the local Amish teach us the best way to butcher without the "fancy" saws. Maybe it would be a good thing to look into for you too if nothing else just to have the info?
I can't afford a commercial saw, wish I could, but right now anything over $1,000 is a bit too pricey.
As for the Amish, the ones around here take their's to the Mennonite locker. However, a hand saw is what would be traditional, if any one wants to come over for a week and help me hand process 700lbs of beef, well let's do it!
You probably have a couple hundred reasons why this is not a good idea, but for the stock tank why not run a 110v line to the tank, install a gfci and use a dip stick heater like for cars.
oh Bob, I have a thing with electrocution in the cattle tank, I don't think it would be a good idea with me around. My arm hurts just thinking about it. :)
My partner mentioned if you get undies done at a pro, you might want to have you or your husband be there to make sure you get all -your- meat. He knew about someone who only got less than 50% of the weight of their bull and most of the meat was obviously not fresh.
Post a Comment