We tend to raise or buy most of our meat in bulk, and well, it’s been a minute since I’ve even looked at the price of meat in the stores. Dang, beef prices are scary. I might be OK with them if I knew I was getting great quality meat, and it was coming from a local farmer, but if I’m buying at Walmart that’s not happening.

I would really, really, REALLY encourage you to get to know your local ranchers and buy from them or a local meat locker. You are supporting a local business, a local family, and the product is just so much better. If you don’t know who your local ranchers are, here are a few suggestions on how to find them:

• look on Facebook. Or ask about local meat sources on your local FB page. Someone will know.
• Go to a local small mom and pop meat market. They know the ranchers they get their beef from, and can give you an idea on lead time. Right now, in NE Colorado, it’s at least 6 months to a year out if you want a beef butchered. Many ranchers make their appointments in advance, but may still have animals for sale. The rancher will deliver the animal to the locker; you just have to fill out the cut sheet, then when it’s ready, pick it up and pay for it.
• Most meat markets do not butcher chickens. It’s not hard, just messy and a little disturbing the first time you do it. My goal when I raise my own meat is to give them a good life and a good death with as little suffering as possible. I will tell you that homegrown chickens are much more expensive than the grocery store when you add in feed and if you have to buy them as chicks (not including the infrastructure you need to raise them).
• If you have a local sale barn, you can find who raises and sells beef or pigs (or goats or lambs) there. You may be even able to buy a live animal there.. If you are planning on using it for meat, though, it’s best to get the locker appointment first.

I am just free associating this entry, so bear with me. This was not really what I sat down to write, but then I remembered a FB post – and away we go. Ha!

It has been my experience that when you set up an appointment at a meat locker, they will give you a cut sheet. This sheet tells them how you want your meat processed and packaged. For instance, do you want rib or arm roasts? what size? Do you want T-bones, or KC strips? How thick? How many to a package? Do you want to keep the organ meat? (Hint – of course you do. If you won’t eat it, the dogs will love it!). Anything not put in to a specific cut will be made into ground beef – or in the case of a pig, sausage. You are usually charged by ‘hanging weight’. This is the weight of the animal after it is killed. It includes the fat, sinew, and bones of the animal, but not the head, hide, hooves, or innards. What you take home, the finished packaged meat is about 65-70% of the hanging weight. Remember this when you are comparing prices.

For pigs, you can also get the lard saved. I prefer to get mine ground (as opposed to chunks), as I can render it at home a little easier that way.

If you get to know the people at your locker well, you can ask if they have any meat that they have not had picked up. Sometimes customers, for whatever reason, cannot pick up an order after they have already paid for it. Lockers can hold it for a while, but their freezer space is at a premium and they need it out. The lockers I know will give a customer about 6 weeks to pick up their processed order before they ‘let it go’. Sometimes, if you have the right timing, you can pick up meat for the cost of processing only. That is a steal!! Right now, processing is about $1.50/lb here – yeah, a steal! You don’t get to choose how it’s cut, or how it’s packaged, but for that price I can live with it! Not all lockers will do this, so please don’t make assumptions that they will.

Part II will actually have recipes (or that’s my plan!). Would you be interested in a post about butchering chickens?