If you buy a whole steer from a farmer, you can estimate how much you're paying per pound of meat in your freezer using these ratios. Say your steer is 800 lb on the hook, or hanging weight. The farmer is charging $4000 for the cow and the farmer is paying for all the butchering fees and slaughter. To estimate your cost per pound of meat in the freezer, you simply divide your cost by the weight of the cow 4000/800 = $5/lb. In this example, it's $5/0.65 or $7.69 per pound of meat in your freezer.
So even though you're only paying $4,000 for the cow which is about $5/lb hanging weight, when it gets into cut and wrapped form, your actual cost is closer to $7.69/lb. Make sense?
We run a small operation so the use of vaccines and antibiotics is minimal. Our animals spend a lot of their time on wide open pastures and mountains where they have plenty of space to graze and roam. Vaccines and Antibiotics are good in certain circumstances. When used correctly they can save our animals lives. All vaccines and antibiotics have a withdrawal time. Meaning if an animal is treated with a vaccine and/or antibiotic they CAN NOT be slaughtered within that withdrawal time so the medicine has sufficient time to metabolize through the animals body.