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How to buy meat directly from a farmer or rancher
I grew up on a farm in southwest Oklahoma, and when we needed beef, my father took a grass fed steer to town and had it butchered for the family. This is rural tradition continues today. Most of the custom butchers listed here can refer you to a local rancher who will sell you one steer, and we have several listings for farmers and ranchers selling direct to the public.
A whole beef is a lot of meat, so it may be more practical to get one or more families to join you in the purchase, and the butchers are happy to split and pack it however you want, you can also generally specify how you want the meat cut. For example, do you want the brisket or should it be ground into hamburger? How thick do you like the steaks? Round steak or cube steak, and how many in a package? All the roasts? Stew meat, fajita meat, short ribs, chili meat? How lean?
Some of the producers also sell by the half, quarter, or eighth beef.
You pick up the meat from the butcher, frozen and wrapped in either good quality butcher paper or a heat sealed plastic film.
First you buy the live beef from the producer, and then generally the processing charges are for the weight of the meat only. Most will also do pork, and are able to cure and smoke the hams and grind and mix the sausage, with an extra charge for the additional processing. I did not find any organic meat producers in Oklahoma, but I found several natural beef producers (no steroids, antibiotics, growth hormones). If you are buying directly from a farmer, rancher, or local feedlot, you can shop around for the better deal, not only in terms of price, but also considering other issues like free range or confined feeding, grass fed or grain fed, etc.
I have spoken with most of these folks on the phone, and none of them were discombobulated at the thought of city folk coming out and buying a steer for them to process. "Very sensible thing to do," as one lady put it. And, "People out here do that all the time." So don't worry, buying beef directly from a farmer and having it cut to your specifications isn't weird or even unusual. RMW
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