Farm Fresh Beef
Introducing Cedar Crate Beef!
Farm Fresh Beef raised in Wabasso, MN by Dan’s parents who have over 30 years of livestock experience. We have several processing dates throughout the summer. We have limited availability of beef shares so get yours reserved today! Our beef will be processed at Ruprecht’s Meat Market in Dan’s hometown of Wabasso, MN.
Our beef is available for purchase in shares with share sizes ranging from a full share (whole cow) down to a 1/4 share (1/4 of a cow). There are a lot of terms that get pretty confusing when you’re purchasing a share of beef. Terms like live weight, hanging weight, boxed weight etc make for a somewhat confusing experience. We’ll break down the terms below and walk you through how we determine what you pay for delicious, nutritious, farm fresh beef.
Quick Facts on our Beef
Small Farm Raised - our beef is raised by my parents, Mike and Diana Zimmerli. They have no employees and are farming on the same land that our family has been farming for over 100 years.
No growth hormones or antibiotics - our beef doesn’t get any growth hormones or antibiotics.
NOT grass fed - our beef is NOT grass fed. Their diet is a mixture of silage and ground corn (more details below). This causes the beef to be tender and marbled with good fat content.
Environmentally responsible - So called “manure lagoon’s ” (used to store animal manure) and pose environmental risks are not used in production. The manure is composted and spread back onto the cropland as fertilizer.
Pricing
Pricing is calculated based on the take home weight and includes butcher fees. To help translate that cost into price per pound take home weight see below. Please note these calculations are based on an average animal size and have a margin of error of 5-15% due to variance in cow size (remember not all cows are exactly the same weight).
Whole share - $6.00/lb or approximately $3240
1/2 share - $6.25/lb or approximately $1687
1/4 share - $6.35/lb or approximately $857.25
Pre-order your Beef share today!
Order early to reserve your beef! This allows us to give an accurate estimate to our butcher. We require a $100 down payment on your beef which is subtracted from the total at final billing. Final billing is done once the butcher has finished processing. Remember, the above pricing are rough estimates and that all cows are not exactly the same size. The pricing above is intended to give you an idea of what each share size of beef will cost.
Live Weight
Live weight is the weight of the live animal “on it’s hooves”. We aim for an animal live weight of approximately 1300lbs before they are butchered. This weight will vary because all animals vary in size but you can expect between a live weight of 1200-1400lbs.
Hanging Weight
Hanging weight is the weight of the animal after it’s been slaughtered and had its inedible parts removed (most organs, the head, etc). Hanging weight is usually around 60% of the live weight but doesn’t include the additional loss of weight due to the aging process. Hanging weight is also the weight used for billing including the butcher processing fees.
boxed weight/take home weight
Boxed weight or take home weight is the weight of meat you take home and put in your freezer. There’s an additional weight reduction of around 5-10% during the aging process. Aging beef usually takes around 2 weeks and is done to improve flavor and tenderness of the meat. Your final take home weight will be approximately 55% of the live weight plus or minus around 5%.
Whole share - 540lbs of meat for your freezer
1/2 share - 270lbs of meat for your freezer
1/4 share - 135lbs of meat for your freezer
About Our Cows
Close up of corn silage. As you can see, it’s the entire corn plant ground up. It has a sweet scent and is soft to the touch.
Cow Diet
Cedar Crate Beef cows are fed on a mixture of silage, high moisture corn, milled corn and additional vitamins and proteins as required. Silage is the entire corn plant which is ground up and stored in a silo while it is still partially green. High moisture corn is simply the corn kernels harvested when it's moisture content is high and then stored in a silo. Both corn silage and high moisture corn undergo fermentation when stored in the silo that breaks down the silage and corn to make it more digestible. Ground corn is dried corn that is ground up using a feed mill and fed to cattle as a supplement to corn silage. It makes up a smaller portion of the total food the cattle are fed.
Cow Living Conditions
Cedar Crate Beef cows are raised in a cattle yard that's the size of several football fields. A typical herd size is around 100 cattle in that space. Cornstalk bedding is spread to act as an insulator and bedding for the cattle during the winter months. Additionally, Cedar Crate Beefs cattle are only treated with antibiotics when they are sick. Very few cows need to be treated and none are sent to the butcher until the antibiotics have cleared the cows system.
The cow pen is cleaned regularly and manure is composted and applied to nearby fields as fertilizer. The cows are not at a density that causes manure to runoff and contaminate nearby water supplies.
Cows in their pen. Note the corn straw bedding in the bottom left.
Storage Recommendations
One of the challenges of buying a share of beef is finding a way to store the beef and calculating how much space you need to store your beef. We recommend purchasing a chest freezer if you don’t already own one. Chest freezers are fairly inexpensive and it’s quite economical to store beef in a chest freezer with electricity costs as low as $5/month to power a chest freezer. We’ve had good luck with GE and Amana brand freezers.
Chest Freezers are sized according to the volume of the freezer measured in cubic feet. As a general rule of thumb, you can fit about 35lbs of meat into 1 cubic foot of chest freezer space. To store a whole cow you’d need around a 20 cubic foot freezer, a half cow around a 10 cubic foot freezer and so on.