I get a quarter cow two to three times a year from a organic farmer who is also a very active member in TACTICAL CIVICS. I can not eat meat from anywhere else . People don't know what good meat taste like .
My uncle had a broken down old manure spreader on the front of his lawn on the country road in Nebraska with a big sign that said: NO POLITICIAN SPREADS IT BETTER.
Problem is many smaller animals is they have a VERY narrow window from healthy to dead...sickness in a goat could be hours .... cows could be week or more.
I raised and butchered sheep on my own until I retired from my farm. If you think through your setup, it isn't a problem. Spreader bar on a pulley, preferably under a nice shade tree, have running water close, a good table (I scavenged a stainless table from a food processing facility that was upgrading), and decent knives.
block and tackle up into big oak was the way we butcher steer back in the 50's. hand grinder and handsaw to do final cuts. same with hogs. canned a lot of the meat.
Being raised on a farm, I'll be the first to say that home raised is always the best. But lately I no longer rely on freezers, no matter how they are powered, to preserve food. I now rely on canning, curing, smoking, or dehydrating to store meat for long term. Soon after my wife died from cancer, I had gotten called away from my home for two weeks, on a work related job. Since I was living alone, no one was there to monitor anything and when I came back home and opened the door to walk in, the smell of rotten meat made my stomach turn. Long story short, the compressor burned out in my upright freezer and over 200 lbs of wild game was leaking all over the ceramic floor. Everything was a total loss, including the floor that needed replacing. Since then, I have moved into my off grid cabin and still use a solar chest freezer, but it's only for temporary storage of up to a month.
My grandparents butchered all the time, mostly in the winter months. Used block n tackle on a huge tri-pod to hang the cows/hogs. Before my grandfather had tractors to use to hoist the animal up on tri pod, they used the draft horses. They would use the single trees from the draft horses to hang the animal. So very glad I kept all those things... we might need them one day soon.
I know and old guy who is a butcher. He seems just a little crazy. He says he will butcher anything. I had him do 2 pigs for me (Hammy and Baco), and 1 of them was ready and I went to pick it up while he was doing the second one. I was like do you want me to pay you for this one. He was like "no you can pay when you come back for the second one. He held up a meat cleaver and smiled and said I know where you live." Hmmmm... I thought, I am going to give that guy a tip!
Coming from a rural area and having slaughtered my own chickens, I have a realistic idea of what it will take after grid down especially if someone doesn't have a generator. I would slaughter in the late fall so meat would keep better for canning, dehydrating, salting and what can be eaten while still fresh. ❤️👍🇺🇲 FJB, ET AL.
Make your "butcher" area a "clean room" ...able to be washed down fully. ..and used for honey extraction, butchery, hanging time.. etc........ I am the local "to guy" for cows that go down . So much so I carry my "kit" with me daily. Some CRAZY stories AND it builds network. I use my forklift ....
My mom's family used to butcher hogs in Louisiana. They did it themselves. I think if you have help it can be done. But, for one person, it would be difficult.
I live and work on a black angus cattle farm. 400+ head and increasing. My buddy 6 mile away raises chickens 120,000 at a time. Meat is not a high priority on my preps. Got to find me a dairy farm, alas most have shutdown in my area 🙁
15 months and still nursing? Be careful doing that, a calf that old/big will destroy an udder. He should have been weaned well before a year old (6-8 months usually) for the health and safety of the cow.
Last winter myself and 4 cousins processed 4 elk. It was Dec so cold enough that we could hang them for a week. We have a 1hp grinder from cabellals and we course ground and fine ground. A must have is a good grinder.
Last October butchered our first Hog..Used a loader on the tractor. My Great Grandmother said October was Hog butchering time. Cool night, less bugs especially after the first frost. On grandma's farm they smoked or used the salt pork methods for preserving the meat.
We raise Dexter's. They are smaller than the commercial breeds and easier to handle alive and at butcher time. My bull weighs in at just under 1100lbs. The last steer we butchered was just under 800lbs and was easily manageable for us.
1955, Osage County Oklahoma, my Grandpa born 1893, processed cow in the fall, he used a oilfield truck with a boom to hoist the steer. He also did hogs and used a smoke house for pork. Grandpa was the real deal. Old school WWI vet.
I'm a homesteading and have a butcher shop on property. It takes my wife and I two 8 hour days to process and package a steer. That doesn't include the slaughter, which takes about 3 or 4 hours from prep to in the cooler.
One of my sons was convinced he was lactose intolerant. I didn't see how that was possible because no one else in the family is, and he never had a problem when he was little. I asked him to please try to find someone he could get raw milk from in his area. He did, and magically, he not only is not lactose intolerant, but his severe seasonal allergies are gone.
Drinking unpasteurized milk now is not a good idea. The H5N1 virus in being found in milk in many states now, even viral remnants are found in pasteurized milk. If this particular strain of virus becomes easily transmissible H2H (human to human) could make COVID look like a walk in the park. Historically this strain has a very high CFR (case fatality rate). Depending on how it mutates here we really could be in real trouble. This strain is rapidly spreading in many mammals already here. Just another reason to prepare. Please take this seriously.
50 yrs ago my dad would throw a rope over large oak tree branch and tie one end to his truck to raise a 300 lb pig (that was already killed) He would raise it over a 55 gal steal drum with a fire so it would drain . He would bring a cow a year to The Slaughterhouse. They would process and package half for us, also store it in our own meet locker. In the summer we would take our winter coats with us to go in and get packages. I know someone will get grossed out by this but that's how it was done then.
Keep an eye on the freezer too. I lost a freezer full of meat this past week. I only found out when it was leaking. The power was still on. Really made for a bad day.
It’s amazing meat! We butchered our 1/2 Hereford bull calf at almost 1 year old. He was still a bull. He weighed 1120 pounds. His hanging weight was right at 700 lbs! He was with his momma who is a Jersey Angus cross the entire time. Still getting mommas milk as well. We had T-bone steaks the other night and honestly the best steak we’ve ever had. We also could cut it with a fork. Momma was milked once a day and we shared the entire time with the calf. She was giving approx 1 1/2 gallons a day to just us. We have decided that we could possibly butcher at about 10 months old for a smaller weight and still be ahead. We also raise rabbits, Royal Palm turkeys, and American Bresse chickens for meat. Thank you for all the wonderful info you supply your viewers with.
Thank you for raising those babies the way you do! Most kids (and about half of adults 🥴) have no idea where their meat comes from. God bless and stay safe!
Excellent post. VERY important to understand the size differences. I had a friend who raised a pig for me for a season because she had the hoists and such to process. I was blessed because that pig was huge. Goat is as far as I can go. Or deer. Not elk unless I do it all on the ground. That can be done, it's just messy. Get to know someone that can share or host. Helpful.
My advice with any freezer, is never leave any headspace in there. Put a gallon of water in every day(and no more than that to make sure it isn't putting all that extra heat on your frozen goods). And when you need space you can take a bottle out or 2 and put it in your fridge till it thaws out again but that helps your fridge not needing to cycle as much. Or we always pull out a gallon water each time we go camping or need a coolerfor volleyball gameday. That one gallon keeps an igloo cool for several days. I have 4 freezers and almost no free space in there(makes mama kinda cranky....but) Frozen water is like a function of time. Takes about a day to freeze one, but in a grid down, it takes about a day per gallon to unfreeze with no power. So the more ice you have now, the more time you'll have to keep things frozen. (You actually mentioned this right when I was typing, lol)
We had to dispatch and field dress a steer several years ago because we couldnt get it loaded to go to a butcher. It is A LOT of work. Our neighbor was able to lift it to skin it and gut it. We had an Amish butcher friend that processed the rest and provided the freezer.
A sturdy but simple pulley system hanging from a large tree is how my grandad did it. All by hand. Only did it in the deep winter so they could hang for a few days.
Dave, my husband and I butcher our bull last winter when the temp was 10 degrees and under. We were out in the cold butchering our beef. We didn't have any lift or anything just starting to cut on the ground.
We've raised goats for over 30 years. Best meat I ever ate was a year-old wether (castrated male). Plus, we get 1/2-1 gallon of wonderful, sweet milk from each doe per day.
Smaller size ranchers here tell me they lost money on their steers last year. I wouldn’t personally raise beef cattle for profit. But it would sure be nice to have that beef available
My freezer has a years worth or more of fresh beef for under 2.50 a pound. My next herd of calves are grazing and are fully paid for from my selling two heads and processing one. Rinse and repeat. Yes it’s worth it.
Great video! We raise goats and like to purchase baby cows and pigs when we have excess milk and feed them on that. We currently have several in the freezer. What worries me is the potential of loosing electricity. So we try to bottle lots of it as well. We highly value our butcher!! In the meantime we have our eye on young boys in our neighborhood who have butchered chicken who have the stomach to barter with us when needed. ❤️
We have been processing our own steers, hogs and deer for many years. I started with deer at age 14. If you can process a rabbit you can do a deer. If you can process a deer you can do a hog. If you can process a hog you can do a steer. Get a good chain hoist. Northern Tool has 1 ton electric hoists that work great. What one man can do, another can do.
This our 3rd season with pigs, 1st with steer, bringing it to local retired butcher and learning to do it all myself 1 step at a time. Looking forward to it. Grid down would destroy much, but we preserve food also. Great topic. God bless the patriots
that's what hubs family did way back when. we still have all the equipment to process the beef, pork and deer we have. it is the best way, and you are correct, it is hard to find a better piece of meat than homegrown.
We tried raising a cow and were successful, but processing it ourselves and storing it all made us switch to sheep. Sheep are a much smaller amount of meat to dispatch at one time and you can leave the rest of the "meat" out grazing in the pasture. Plus we don't need a tractor to haul around the sheep carcass like we did with the cow.
I have processed Angus cows and it takes a crew to do it. I think the best prepper meat to raise is dexter cows, they are smaller, can handle cold weather and eat anything like goats. Goats I don't like they get sick way to easily and are a pain to keep in a field.
The beasts (As we call steers) would be slaughtered on the farm , as they were in times passed. They would kill it as close to a tree as possible, slaughter it. Then use a block and tackle, and enough men to hoist it up. Spoken to old farmers and this is how they did it. Look foreward to your videos. Always very informative.
Dave, in 2014, I designed and worked with Sundanzer, Tuscon Arizona to build a self contained freezer, running off solar. Probably $100,000 or more. But it's a 40' ISO cargo container that runs completely off solar. You can have a meat locker for rent to your friends in your neighborhood. Consider it. Stainless steel interior. Sundanzer has the process, built here in the USA.
My ex used to black rifle, bow, and gun hunt deer every year along with wild turkey, fishing, and partridge hunting. I spent most of the fall season canning all that meat. The only meat that we kept in the freezer was the fish.
If you got extra heavy blankets, you can put them on top to hold in some cold and freeze some gallons of water. Lots power outages here in FL when the lovely hurricane comes by
exactly yeah frozen water bottles are what I do on top, can save them from other stuff. then if you need them for an ice chest or heat casualty later they're all ready.
Everything you mentioned, short of letting it hang in a cooler; can be done by hand, using a hand meat saw, knives, hand crank grinder, and a chain hoist, and a beam hung in a barn/couple trees. You have to do it in the fall though, to take advantage of the cooler temperatures. Years back in a comment section, I ran into someone who said that when he last needed to defrost his deep freeze, as an experiment, he decided to can, smoke, and preserve *everything* in the deep freeze to see how long it took and how much work it was. Sadly, he didn’t go into details, such as how long it took and how many canning jars and other supplies he used. Probably a smart thing to do some time, so you know what you’ll need to keep on hand to deal with a long term power failure.
@@return2basics242 For sure, knowing how many Mason Jars, lids, gaskets(if you are using re-usable lids) you need, how much water, salt, sugar, and pectin you will use up canning and preserving, how much pickling lime, seasonings, you need, how much *propane* or wood to cook, can, smoke, and dry everything. It’s a lot of stuff.
Great video Dave! Hamburger and other beef meats, whether you get it from the grocery store and it is wrapped in plastic or you get it from a butcher shop and it is wrapped in butcher paper: vacuum seal it in whatever wrapping you bought it in and freeze it. I have had hamburger, roasts and steak last five years when stored this way. I say only five years because that is all the longer I have personally stored meat in this way, opened it and used it. You will likely get several more years of storage out of it when you vacuum seal it before freezing. I am not by any means saying that this is the best or only way to do this, it is simply what I have done and it has worked very well for me. If anyone has tips, tricks or has stored meat for longer, I am very interested to hear about your process in the replies. PS: I never store any meat in the plastic with a styrofoam bottom and liquid absorbing pad. If I purchased meat wrapped this way, I would take it out of the wrapping it came in, discard the wrapping, styrofoam and pad, rinse it, dry it, then double vacuum seal it and finally freeze it.
Your point of view is important for everyone to hear. Personally, I would like to have a mini jersey cow, that would be more than enough for one family. Milk, butter and cheese can take you pretty far. Thanks for sharing.
butchering is a massive massive effort. I don't envy whoever has to clean up afterwards. Used to be my job and it took hours, and you never really get the smell out of your nose. ;p eheh. wear lots of PPE
@@SuspiciousGanymede yeah absolutely. on a night I was off, the backup was cleaning up back there and she got cut real bad and was in full panic mode. it was incredibly stressful. also when cleaning up that much .. "aftermath", it's hard to tell your injuries from the overall cleanup situation. about a million blades back there. cut gloves for everything. deli slicer's the worst. ;/ fml
Sounds like beef will become a delicacy in a shtf situation. I'm thinking rabbits and quail maybe. Oh and I recall during the covid years, you could not find a freezer to buy anywhere...components made in Mexico and they were not starting up their manufacturing yet.
We managed to find one at a high end appliance store in town. For cheap, they were getting desperate to make a sale. We needed it because we won a cow in a raffle. 4H kid couldnt sell her cow at the fair auction, because no dair that year. So her mom got the idea to have a facebook raffle, I bought 200$ worth of tickets. But it was way too much beef for us, and I bought large plastic bins and blessed 4 families with 100lbs each.
We have always had extra freezers and fridges. Now we have more for our milk from our cows. We haven't butchered a cow yet because we just started raising mini jerseys. Any bull's born will be raised for meat. We will be buying our own mini jersey bull as soon as we have the proper fencing for a bull completed.
For the cost feed for 18 months, plus the cost of cut and wrap if you take it to a slaughter house. No you can't save, the plus is the meat is better than the crap you buy. We always raised a freezer calf when I was a kid. Paid $10 for a calf, powdered milk $10 A SACK and heavy grain sweet feed $8.00 100lbs. and the slaughter house was not very much.
Sounds amazing! If you store it in your freezer and know how to pressure can meat, you could preserve it and not lose the meat if the grid were to go down.
Find a small, independent butcher shop or meat processor. Ask to visit and watch what they do. You'll learn what you need and what to do. They're usually set-up for almost any large animal including wild game. When my father was a boy, everyone had a smokehouse, salt box and root cellar.....smoking and salting were the two ways to cure and preserve meats. When I was younger, I lived in a community where many people made and smoked their own summer sausage. It was a tradition in that community. There really isn't that much to a smokehouse....since most of the smoke is trapped within, it isn't a beacon to potential marauders.
Awesome advise. Be ready to have all the canning supplies to can that beef if power or freezer is out. Freezer beef is good till about 10/12 months if packaged well. At that point if I still have it that long, I thaw it, lightly brown it and can it in ball mason jars. I have eaten 1 yr frozen into 4 yr canned and it was delicious!
We used to raise Guernsey milk, cows, and when they had a bull calf. We always gave it a meat name like chuck roast or T-bone or sirloin so the kids never forgot that that one was for eating. When we had girls we named them, Rosie or Sam sweet town name and I told them you can fall in love with the girls but not the boys. That’s just part of life on the farm.
David butchering game is a tough job be it deer or wild pig even small domestic animals like chicken or rabbit takes time and experiance. Your right there is nothing better tasting than properly raised meats.
You don't need excavators or tractors or even a motorized vehicle to hang a cow carcass. You just need some knowhow, along with some rope & pulleys! Thanks for all the daily vids & all the Thoughts, Theories & Knowledge you put out there for all of us. I Love your channel, I respect what you're doing & I appreciate You. That said.... You're exaggerating a bit on the whole hanging a cow thingy & or your just not thinking about the various different ways there are to accomplish a task! Make sure you have a Great day and an Excellent rest of the week!
Absolutely right. Our steers went at about eighteen months and are delicious, eating corn meal and they also got some treats like the crooked carrots from the garden, etc. We want another couple steers, but prices are high right now. My husband is getting himself positioned to start artificially inseminating cows right now when he retires from his current job as a truck driver, and we'll do some maple syrup, too, on a larger scale. I've seen smaller beef animals hoisted up by a backhoe, but you're right, it's a lot! This home-raised meat is the BEST beef, or pork, etc., you'll ever eat. I don't mean feeding them junk either. Every time I take an animal to the butcher, I get complimented on how nice the meat is. Yes, our hogs got treats from the garden, broccoli stalks, bean plants, pea plants, and they love acorns, but mainly these animals that I intend to eat get Agway hog feed, the steers got corn meal, and of course were on milk replacer at first. They were only a week old when we brought them home. I highly recommend halter breaking them, even the pigs. Trying to load pigs onto anything without halter breaking them is like trying to push little mini-bulldozers somewhere. They will knock you down. If animals get out, you also need a way to get them home. It's not Yellowstone here, I don't have a mob of cowboys to herd them back! I"m so happy that your meat is delicious Dave. :)
@@poodledaddles1091 You are welcome! I assume that you have poodles. I met a lovely standard poodle years ago, he was black, and named Otis, LOL. He had a magnificent and calm demeanor. I have mostly had Labs, lab crosses, and currently, two Border collies and an Aussie. Take care!
A thought about your hardware store and those freezers. If they are similar, you could stock overloads, start relays and fan motors as these are the most common parts to fail on a freezer or refrigerator.
Great for you and your family! We have 2 polled mini jersey's A2A2, that had 2 female calfs. We are sharing the milk right now. We did specifically ask for AI females 95% from an A2A2 polled mini jersey bull,37", our females are both 35". The next round it will be for a bull or 2 for the meat. We have a professional butcher that will handle it all and my bf will be watching and assisting to learn. We were thinking of getting a polled mini jersey bull that is not related to our females just for the fact of if there is a grid down, we will have our own control for mating. But we are not set up to contain a bull. Once we are, we will spend the $ to get one for our herd. We have 4 females. As far as electricity goes, we have the necessary means for all the electricity that will be needed and more and backups. We have 20 acres of hay and they are moved onto new pasture every 2 days (not the hay field). They are supplemented with hay. No grain. We have 2 freezers and 2 fridges just for the milk. We no longer purchase any dairy products from the stores. Nothing goes to waste because we have 3 pigs, chickens, dogs and barn cats. Plus we have a large multigenerational household with plenty of mouths to feed. That was the whole reason to have these animals so that we can be self sufficient and know exactly how they are raised and fed with no chemicals anywhere on our land and we are not next to any farms that spray.
We just sold one of our dairy cows and are even thinking of selling her yearling heifer and staying with our Nubian milk goats. Goats eat less feed and produce the right amount of milk for a family. the goat kids can be sold or raised up for butcher. One difference is cows produce much higher cream content and making butter is easier with cow milk than goat's milk. You can smoke or jerk meat for better storage and it can be used in soups, stews and other dishes after rehydrating. We butcher our animals in winter, using the cold temps. to age the meat and then process ourselves, a large steer is a lot of work, much like processing a moose. The reason for hanging the meat is to allow it to dehydrate down, otherwise the meat when cooked up has lots of water in it. My husband worked for a butcher for a few years, which makes it nice because he knows all that needs to be done. Our freezers are chest freezers and one upright, but we prefer chest style. Nuts can thaw and then be vacuum sealed in jars and kept in a cool dark room for years. The higher fat nuts will get rancid quicker, just use them up first. We always laugh at people who ask how we butcher our own, and it is far healthier than anything they are buying at the stores and those animals are also not humanely treated either.
Here in florida panhandle, there is an 8 to 12 month waiting list at the processers, we need more of those down here. But then again we have lots of hunters that do deer so many would improvise!
sounds like quite a project. I was harvesting a duck when this came up. Still takes me two hours. a steer? me & what army? :) the quality makes it all worthwhile. thanx for sharing.
I’ve been butchering hogs and deer , goats and small game for years but we just usually grind it into sausage, and burger . But any cows I get always go to a butcher because it would be to difficult for us .
To many people are to worried about generators, Lights and trying to stay with life as it is today. Curing meat the old ways isn't impossible, Just no one does it. Butchering isn't hard but then after cutting meat for 15 years it is simple to me. Hand Grinders are a little work but they are still available. They use to cut a summers worth of ice blocks during winter to keep the ice house cold. Canvas, Saw dust and ice blocks will keep it cold. A cold smoke house cures meat. It really is hard if you are willing to work.
In the interest of diversifying food storage, meat can be easily and safely canned for use in stews, chili, casseroles, etc provided care is taken to follow the proper steps. Drake Paragon has a great, in-depth, step by step how to I highly recommend. He and his wife live on a sailboat cruising the world and regularly can meat to save money and power. My nephew raises cattle he sells and a couple of pigs. I have room to raise a few animals, but have only raised goats, chickens, and rabbits so far. A steer is just too much for one or two people, so I buy a quarter and usually a couple of Katahdin lambs each fall (live weight between 70-90# ea). Katahdin lamb is very mild and I like it as well as beef. I used to have a good source for pork, but that farmer retired.
1] I've had to pressure can an entire cow after the freezer died a week after getting it home from processors. HUGE task, but love having the canned meat. 2] Process on the ground until it is in halves, then can lift to hang. 3] Learn to make cheese, yogurt . . . with surplus milk. Chickens and pigs love raw milk and they taste better because of it. Finally, Nothing comes close to a Jersey steer raised on mom! Enjoy!!
