Butcher Shops

37chief

Well-known Member
Location
California
We had half a pig processed we bought from a friend. I picked up the meat a couple days ago. I am sure they are fair in cutting up the meat. I often wonder when I see a butcher shop selling meat how easy it would be to grab off a few pounds for sale in their shop. I am sure that isn't the case here. We had some sausage made. It was so spicy (hot) we couldn't eat it. I called the shop and told them the meat was too spicy. They exchanged it for me with no problem. My friend who raised the pigs bought all the feed. We bought it for what they had in it. I don't think much is saved when all the feed is bought from a feed store. You guys raising pigs do you raise your own feed? Stan
 
(quoted from post at 09:12:40 11/20/15) We had half a pig processed we bought from a friend. I picked up the meat a couple days ago. I am sure they are fair in cutting up the meat. I often wonder when I see a butcher shop selling meat how easy it would be to grab off a few pounds for sale in their shop. I am sure that isn't the case here. We had some sausage made. It was so spicy (hot) we couldn't eat it. I called the shop and told them the meat was too spicy. They exchanged it for me with no problem. My friend who raised the pigs bought all the feed. We bought it for what they had in it. I don't think much is saved when all the feed is bought from a feed store. You guys raising pigs do you raise your own feed? Stan

I think there are good and bad butchers...you just have to find the good ones! Hobby farmers around here buy all their feed...I don't see the point. Then they cry about how much it costs to raise a pig and want $4 a lb hanging weight. I just go to Costco and buy a nice tenderloin when I get hungry for pork.....
 
We don't have the acreage, the soil type, or the equipment to raise our own feed stocks, so for our few hogs we purchase feed. However, one of the butcher shops we used last year seems to have shorted us about 40 pounds of bacon. At least when we called to ask, they said they couldn't find it. They may not have looked under the counter glass.
 
I raise most of my own feed. I have to think that a person buying feed in 50# bags and hoping to make a few bucks selling to the neighbors and friends has probably not worked the figures out or has left a few numbers off. Do a little better if you can by in bulk from a producer. Last year when corn was so low and the weather so bad the only way I stayed in the black was by keeping half of it and feeding it myself. I still think, though, that raising a pig or a steer...even if you pay more than at the market...has it's own rewards from the experience of doing it and from the better quality result.
 
We have raised a few pigs in the past and bought halves and 1/4ths from people too. Anymore it just seems as cheap to go to the local butcher shop and buy what we want when we want it. I have been told from some others that our local butcher also raises his own animals and this fellow thought he did a good job and feed good feed too.
 
We used to raise hogs on a small scale and always had one (along with a "fatted calf") slaughtered and processed each year, but we discontinued the hog business some years ago, and after my wife's heart attack and open heart surgery a year and a half ago, we have cut down and been very selective in our meat consumption. It's now more fish and poultry and much less red meat. I have adopted the same prescribed diet as my wife, and, after a time to adjust our taste preferences, we are both satisfied with it. I do lots of cooking and like to experiment with my own recipes, using NO SALT, but compensating that with many natural flavorful ingredients such as garlic, horseradish, vinegar, apple, of course, "Mrs. Dash," etc. Though I still like to have a breakfast of sausage and eggs, but very infrequently!
 
I think most food items are cheaper bought, than raised or grown. I have a garden and chickens as a lifestyle, it really doesn't pencil out, at least for me. The goat is just a freeloader!! :)
 
"I often wonder when I see a butcher shop selling meat how easy it would be to grab off a few pounds for sale in their shop."
I know a guy who worked at a shop here. He said if you wanted a good cut of meat ground in to burger,they threw some old bull meat in the grinder and yours ended up in the case.
He doesn't work there anymore.
 
I sell a fair bit of freezer lamb and I always use a local guy who we have dealt with for many years. My lambs dress out at about 40 lbs (with bone-in legs). I have one guy INSIST I use his butcher (larger outfit about 40 mins away). So I agree to it and haul some lambs 40 mins to this other guy and low and behold, 2 weeks later I get a call from the customer that his lamb was awful. Tough, real sheepy tasting, chops too small, not as much meat as I promised, etc. The butcher claims my lambs only dressed out 27 lbs of meat apiece, which I know is crap because I know what i get from the other guy. Come to find out this butcher has a reputation of screwing people. Lots of people swear that their customers are not getting the meat they paid for. This place does a lot of Saturday morning business out of the case and there is a town close by with a lot of Lebanese immigrants, so I'm pretty sure i know what happened to my lamb.....and my customer got some old ewe yet because the butcher is his buddy, he thinks I'm the one that screwed him. Never again.
 
I'm both a hog and cattle producer. I do buy truckloads of corn from a friend and then use my own alfalfa, hay, beans, wheat, and milo. I used to use far less corn but with the price of it and milo I can feed pretty economically the last year or so. You just can't make the purchased feed pencil out and stay in the black. You better not need a vet visit for a hog, as it just went in the red. Hogs get a lot more bullets than they do vet bills, sad to say. I don't worry too much about the cattle markets as you work so far in the future with them. Hog markets stress me a bit.
 
That nothing new. In the 1960's dad once had a hog butchered that resulted in a disappointingly low amount of meat. He complained to the butcher shop and brought along the latest grade and yield reports for a truck load of hogs from that same group. The butcher couldn't explain the difference, but the next hog dad had butchered there produced an amazingly high amount of meat that was numerically impossible from a hog that size.
 
A lot of good shelled corn some cracked and straight alalfafa hay make a very good eating hog or steer. Will be doing it again next year as retiring from this job gets closer.
 
Many years ago, dad had a steer butchered, and took it to a local butcher to cut and wrap. They gave us a quarter, and when I got it home, the steaks were dark colored and tough, and too small to be from that steer. And the fat was bright yellow (Jersey). I went back to confront the guy, but he was knee-walking drunk, had an attitude, and lots of sharp stuff within easy reach. I turned around and walked out, and donated the meat to the Salvation Army. Never did mention it to dad (he'd have wanted to "make it right", and it wasn't his fault)- I wonder if they got the real stuff?
I asked around a little, and it turns out the guy was drunk most of the time, and it could have been an honest (for him) mistake, I guess. His shop burned down a year or so later, and he didn't rebuild. I think his business had fallen off to almost nothing by then.
 
There is a Mennonite family that as a meat processing business about 8 miles south of me. I used to take deer there all the time, 'cause you knew that you got your own deer meat back. Other places around here, I've heard if you take a deer in you get the right number of pounds of meat back but you can't be sure it was from your own deer.

Unfortunately, two years ago the Mennonites got so busy with other business that they quit doing deer. I didn't get a deer last year, but if I get one this year I have another shop picked out that I've heard good reports on.

And I'd agree, butcher shops are one business where there can be a bit of hanky panky, depending on the owner's conscience, although I'd have to assume most play it straight.

Speaking of deer hunting, it's about time I got out to my stand. There's a big buck down there I've been trying to waylay all week.
 


I found you just can't trust them. When we were finishing hogs, we took a hog to a butcher, and when the meat came back, we got the smoked of a same hog and was salty. Another hog farmer told us of one by Saranac, and couldn't find better trusting folks. It pays to check with others.
 
Raise my own because I like to know what is in it. Mine are grass fed with small amount of grain I personally prefer to find someone that can kill on the farm if the animal is stressed it kicks in the adrenaline and makes the meat tough. Unfortunately it's hard to find someone to do that and I have to deliver but as far as the butchers honesty well these were jersey and I have found white fat in the meat and he wants to buy my cattle so fingers crossed I gotta butcher one soon
 
We buy our feed from the store, and feed all of our food scraps, excess garden produce and such to the pigs. We have one of two local shops butcher them. One is a bit highter priced than the other, but they both d a good job. If you send the hogs to slaughter at the right time, it's much cheaper than buying meat at a supermarket. Once you get a pig above 200 lbs. it doesn't take long for them to eat enough to really close the gap between home raised and store purchased. We have purchased four sets of pigs from 4 different breeders and the last breeder we purchased from has the most feed efficient pigs by a long shot. Some guys know how to breed efficient pigs and some don't. Any way you look at it, once they get over 200 lbs., they start to eat a lot of feed in a short time.
 
I raised 4 hogs this year. My total cost, including purchase of the hogs in the spring, and the feed ended up at $.72 per lb. They grew to an average of 255 lbs each. Sold 3 of them to friends for $.95 per lb live weight. They paid for processing. They were happy to pay it, BTW. Said the meat tasted MUCH better than the factory hog house meat.

I get my feed custom made in 500 or 1000 lb batches at a local elevator. They use a recipe from Kent feeds for hog production. I can share the recipe if interested. Ends up being quite a bit cheaper than buying swine feed at the local farm store. I also feed any fruit and vegetables I can get. Last year they got a lot of pumpkins. Harvest this year was not very good so they got none.

Buying 4, selling 3 made my hog free to me (except for the processing). I don't do it for the money, would go broke fast. I do it to give better quality meat for my family and my friends.

John
 

Funny! I just noticed my handle and just posted about hogs. HA!

My handle comes from my nickname for Cowboy shooting, not from raising hogs... A hogleg is a long barreled cowboy sixgun.

John
 
My parents send a heifer or steer to the local butcher, and they're good. Always trust we get our own meat back. The steaks are always good. If the meat is poor quality from them, it's the person who raised it, not them.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 

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