Not Enough Coolers!!

It happens every time it seems. I can just never have enough coolers.

I show up at the meat processing place and I've got (7) 94 quart Marine grade Igloo coolers (these are the big commercial fishing coolers), and I'm there to pick up an animal we had processed.

Not even close!

All (7) coolers are chocked full, and guys are still coming out with shopping carts full of beef. Holy "cow"! Good thing it was cool out today because we rode back home with 200 lbs of beef in the back seat of my truck, (2) 40 lb packs of beef in the bed of the truck, and (7) 94 qt. coolers full of beef.

All in all it was about 450lbs of beef. Filled up one whole full sized chest freezer and one whole stand up freezer and half of another chest freezer.

People walk into our out-building and ask ... "why in the heck do you have so many coolers???? Shoot, we have only ONE of those big coolers!!"

Well, now you know...and I STILL don't have enough!!

LOL!!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Man I am really jealous right now. I make sure to keep always ten pounds of crappy beef from Vons in my fridge in the garage.

I bet that is some tasty beef!

What do you feed your cows?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

You must have a walk in freezer! Do you have any room left for the odd Elk?

When we used to get a whole cow, it would fill up our explorer from the front seats back. we pick up our beef from the meat processing plants in November so it is cool outside. They keep it in their deep freeze for at least two days after they cut and package it, so it is flash frozen when we get it. Those commercial freezers sure freeze things quick.

We just put ours into big plastic totes. The problem is the totes are so cold, sometimes they crack on us when we carry them down to the basement.

I'm too old to eat a quarter head of beef anymore yet alone buy a whole steer like I used to. We eat more Amish chicken and fish now than before, but still over fifty percent of the meat we eat is beef.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

and I'm there to pick up an animal we had processed.

*One* animal, and all those coolers weren't enough?

JFC that's a lot of meat. And a huge animal.

I did not know you raised elephants.

Though they do come with an extra trunk

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

A man of your ingenuity would be processing their own meat in the back yard straight to the freezer or walk in pantry/cooler! And save in costs at the same time. Think of all that blood & bone fertilizer!

Fail!!!

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Nah, that's a lot of work to do it properly, and it really takes a special facility. A full sized steer is a big animal, a hanging carcass can weigh 1,000 lbs (that's after gutting, skinning, legging and heading). And to do this properly, nothing can touch the ground anywhere during the process. Then you need big butchering tables in a refrigerated environment (and creating a refrigerated environment that big, with all the heavy handling overhead track, etc. is expensive ($$$$$).

People hear terms like a "half" or a "quarter" of a beef, but that's not how they get butchered, so it's not like you can take 1,000 lbs and divide it in half or by four to reduce the handling weight down to something manageable like 250 lbs. It doesn't work like that. It doesn't really break down into halves and quarters until about the end of the process when you're sorting the packed meat. Then there's all the commercial grade grinders and sausage makers you'd need also.

It's worth it to just pay the processing fees...especially if you're only doing it once a year or so for yourself.

The processing business is really a whole other business from the cattle business. We don't sell packed beef, that's a different USDA certification. It would actually be illegal for us to do so without a USDA licensed processing facility. All our beef is sold "on the hoof".

a reply to: Liquesence

This one was just shy of 900 lbs on the hook.

So yeah, it's a lot of beef.

originally posted by: Allaroundyou
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

...

I bet that is some tasty beef!

What do you feed your cows?

It is very tasty! Ranks right up there with Wagyu.

Depends on the time of year and what's going on. We generally raise all grass fed beef, but we also do customs where we'll feed them out on grain before processing. In the spring we generally feed alfalfa and alfalfa/hay mix. This helps keep the mommas full of nutritious milk for the calves. During the summer they'll pretty much eat pasture grass, but we'll also supplement with a grass called Tiffany Teff (when we can get it). Otherwise we'll supplement with Orchard grass. Mostly broad leaf grasses, these cows don't like the Timothy variety too much.

a reply to: BlueJacket

No, no walk-in. We just use several large chest freezers.

Yeah, I probably have room for an elk, but I don't do much elk hunting anymore. It's gotten way too commercialized, and there's too many out of state (think CA) idiots and their ATV's and UTV's. They get the elk spooked way up past the tree-line and pushed so far back into the dark timber on day one that you can't get near them.