Haight Cattle Co.Est. 2015 · Kamiah, ID208-507-0766

The question everybody asks first

What will a share of beef actually cost me?

Answer three things and we will show you the whole bill — what you pay today, what comes after the scale, and what a pound of beef in your freezer really works out at. Nothing rounded in our favour.

  • Which share suits your house, and why
  • Hanging weight against the pounds you actually cook
  • Freezer room, in something you can picture
A cooked steak on a plate with green beans and corn, on a family dinner table

Tell us about your table.

Rough answers are fine. Nothing here is sent anywhere — the sum happens on your own screen.

Work it out by

Answer whichever you know best.

Everyone who eats dinner at home, children included.

It is printed on the door sticker. A standard chest freezer is 7; the drawer over a kitchen fridge is about 4½.

How often is beef for dinner?
Two numbers we cannot know

Both of these are somebody else’s price, not ours. Leave them blank and we will say so plainly instead of guessing.

Dollars per pound of hanging weight. Ring the butcher and ask for this and for their kill fee — that bill is theirs, not ours.

Dollars per pound. We will do the comparison with your number instead of ours.

What we would point you at

Half Beef

Four of you, beef three or four nights a week — call it 220 lbs of beef a year. A Half Beef comes home at about 220 lbs.

Two different weights

300 – 380 lbs on the rail — hanging weight, which is what you are billed for194 – 246 lbs in boxes — take-home weight, which is what you cook. About 65% of it.

You pay on the hanging weight. You eat the take-home weight. On our animals about 65% of the rail weight comes back to you in boxes — the rest is bone, trim and the moisture the carcass loses hanging in the cooler.

What it costs

  1. What you pay today$500Your deposit. It holds an animal in your name, and it is all that is charged now.
  2. Balance, after the scaleest. $775.00 – $1115.00Billed off the real hanging weight once the butcher has the carcass on the rail.
  3. The beef, all in, to usest. $1275.00 – $1615.00
  4. Cut and wrapCut-and-wrap is paid to the butcher, not to us. None of the figures above include it — ask your processor for their rate and their kill fee.

What a pound actually costs you

$6.57for every pound of beef
that ends up in your freezer

And this one does not move with the animal. A heavier steer means more beef and a bigger bill in the same proportion — what a pound of beef costs you stays put.

The same beef, bought by the package

The same 220 lbs, priced three ways, before cut-and-wrap.

  1. The same weight as Ground Beef 90/10, off our shelf at $9.50/lb$2090.00
  2. The same weight as Whole Packer Brisket, the cheapest dinner on our shelf at $7.54/lb$1658.80

About $645.00 kept, 31% under the ground-beef price — and a share is not all ground beef.

Room to put it

5.5 – 7.3 cu ftof freezer, packed

Fits in a standard 7 cu ft chest freezer.

About 12 months of eating for the four of you.

Reserve with $500

4 left this harvest

Every figure on this sheet is an estimate until the animal is on the scale, and the animal decides. We would rather you heard that here than at pickup.

What nobody explains until pickup day

None of this is complicated. It is just nobody’s job to tell you, so people find out on pickup day, which is the worst possible time.

Hanging weight against take-home weight

A share is priced per pound of hanging weight — the carcass on the rail at the butcher’s, bone and fat and all, before a single cut is made. It is the only weight that exists at the moment you pay, which is why it is the one the price is set against.

Take-home weight is what you carry out in boxes: after the bones come out, the fat is trimmed, and the carcass has hung in the cooler long enough to age, which costs it moisture. On our animals about 65% of the rail weight comes home with you.

100 lbs on the rail — hanging weight, which is what you are billed forabout 65 lbs in boxes — take-home weight, which is what you cook. About 65% of it.

So a bill that looks like it is for more beef than you received is almost always correct, and almost always explained by this one paragraph.

Why cut-and-wrap is not on our bill

We raise the animal. A licensed processor kills it, hangs it, and cuts it to the sheet you fill in — steak thickness, roast size, how much goes to ground. They bill you for that work directly, and we never see the money.

It is usually charged per pound of hanging weight, with a flat kill fee on top. Ring them and ask for both figures. If you put their rate into the box above, we will add it up for you and keep it in its own column, where it belongs.

What the deposit is, and is not

Your deposit reserves an animal in your name. That is all you are charged today, and it counts toward the total — it is not a fee.

On harvest day the butcher weighs the carcass on the rail. We bill the balance off that real number, before pickup. Until then every total anybody quotes you, on this page or anywhere else, is an estimate, and we will keep saying so.

Fulfilment is ranch pickup or local delivery. We do not ship beef.

How much freezer you need

Boxed beef packs at somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds per cubic foot. The spread is real: a box that is mostly one-pound packs of ground stacks flat and dense, and one with bone-in roasts, ribs and a whole brisket in it does not.

A half beef wants 5.5 to 7.3 cu ft — a standard chest freezer, near enough, and the reason so many families end up with one in the garage.

Bring coolers on pickup day. Beef comes out of the processor frozen hard and you want it to stay that way on the drive home.

Every share we sell, end to end. Weights are estimates until the animal is on the scale; the last column is what a pound of beef in your freezer works out at, before the processor’s bill.
ShareRateHanging weightBeef you take homeFreezer spaceDeposit todayPer lb of beef
Quarter Beef$4.45/lb hanging150–190 lbs97–123 lbs2.8–3.7 cu ft$250$6.88
Half Beef$4.25/lb hanging300–380 lbs194–246 lbs5.5–7.3 cu ft$500$6.57
Whole Beef$4.10/lb hanging600–760 lbs388–492 lbs11–14.7 cu ft$1000$6.34

Rather just ask someone?

A calculator cannot look at your freezer. Ring the ranch and we will talk it through — how many of you there are, what you actually cook, and whether a quarter or a half is the sensible start.

208-507-0766
See the sharesOr just buy a few cuts

Not ready for a whole animal? Individual cuts are on the shelf all year, and the share will still be here next harvest.