Live Animal Shares
How do I order?
Live animal shares
Step 1: Purchase a $250 deposit (non-refundable) from our store, to reserve your shares.
Step 2: Fill out our cut/wrap instruction survey.
Step 3: When your animal has reached finish quality, we will take it's live weight, calculate the cost (minus your deposit), and place an item in our store called "*your name* beef share", for the remaining price of your order.
Step 4: After payment, you will receive an email with instructions for pickup from Mountain Valley Meats in Hood River OR, who you will pay directly for their cut and wrap services . You will have 7 days to pick up your order, before you start incurring a daily storage fee; after 30 days your order will be donated to a local food bank. If you would like to request a different butcher; an on-farm pickup (camping/lodging available for those with long trips); custom orders/delivery; or any other special requests; leave a note in the instruction survey and we will reach out for more info.
How much is this going to run me?
Since you are buying a share in a live cow, our prices are based on the live weight (the weight of the live animal standing on a scale right before it goes in the trailer). Most animals at finish will weigh right around 1,100 lbs on the hoof, and process down to about 700 lbs of meat. Our standard full steers cost $4.49/lb live weight, plus a $1/lb cut and wrap fee, plus a $170/head slaughter fee, which works out to about $1,800 per quarter, $3,400 per half, or $6,200 per full. Calculating all that out to get the price per pound can get a bit complicated though, so we made the handy dandy graph below, so you can easily compare prices. The first section is our current prices; the second section is a few examples of Safeway cuts; and the last section is ground beef from our competitors in the online Regenerative Beef market. As you can see, our prices are middle of the road; which means you are paying a little bit more for your ground beef, but paying a fraction of the price for your filet mignon. If $1,800 seems like a lot to drop on beef, remember a $5 cup of coffee every day for a year adds up to $1,825, and our beef (0.48 lbs a day if rationed for a year) contains a whole lot more essential nutrients than that cup of coffee.