Learning how to raise a year's worth of meat is pivotal in building resiliency on the homestead. The good news is that there are many ways to go about this. Read through this post to learn how much meat your family needs for a year, including how many animals that amount of meat equates to.
Remember that when we're talking about raising a year's worth of meat for our family, we'll need much more than the average family. We are two parents with eleven children, and we feed two or three extra people most days of the week.
The first step in knowing how to raise a year's worth of meat is to know just how much your family consumes. We've given you a basic formula below, but this will be the first step in knowing how many animals you need to raise per year.
The information in this post will also be helpful for those not yet raising their meat (to know how much to buy when purchasing meat from the grocery store, local farmer, etc.) and be able to budget and plan.
Furthermore, if you're looking to start a homestead in the future, choosing the best homestead animals and knowing how many animals your family will eat in a year is good information when figuring out just how much land you'll need to raise those animals (Homesteading Hack: It's probably not as much land as you may think! We're on 40 acres, but only actively using about four of those acres to raise our animals, grow gardens and keep our orchards.)
How Much Meat Do You Need?
Deciding to raise meat animals is an excellent step towards resiliency. However, before investing time, money, and effort into breeding and raising animals for meat consumption, it's crucial to determine how much meat you need to raise, how many animals are required, and the time duration involved.
When deciding how much meat to raise, consider factors such as the size of your family, meat consumption per person per day, and any anticipated events or guests.
The general rule of thumb is to raise ¼-1/2 pounds of meat per person per day. This equates to 1.75-3.5 pounds of meat per person per week. So, a family of four would require 7-14 pounds of meat per week, or 364-728 pounds of meat per year.
| # of People in the Household | Pounds of Meat Per Year (½ lb per day) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 182 |
| 2 | 364 |
| 3 | 546 |
| 4 | 728 |
| 6 | 1,092 |
| 8 | 1,456 |
It's also important to consider the time commitment needed to raise and care for the animals until they reach the desired weight. Chickens can be raised within a couple of months, while pigs take much longer, typically up to eight months or more. Cows take upwards of two years or more, depending on breed and size.
Finally, planning is crucial when it comes to meat-raising goals. Take the time to calculate the pounds of meat required, determine the number and type of animals needed, and assess the overall time commitment needed to reach your goals.
When considering these factors, you can confidently determine how much meat to raise and create a realistic plan to achieve your meat-raising goals. Then, you can begin to think year-over-year by breeding animals to reduce the overall cost.
How Much Meat Our Family Raises
- Meat Chickens - We raise anywhere from 150-200 meat chickens annually. In our family, we eat three chickens per week. One hundred fifty chickens yield approximately 875-1,050 pounds of chicken. (Learn how you can reduce chicken feed costs in any climate.) We then save the bones, feet, necks and heads to turn into homemade bone broth.
- Beef Cattle - We harvest two 1,200-pound steers, yielding approximately 984 pounds of beef.
- Pigs - We'll butcher four 250-pound pigs, yielding approximately 530 pounds of pork. We love our Kune Kune pigs. We chose this heritage breed because they're known for their lard. This is great for us since we often cook with our home-rendered lard.
- Sheep - We butcher one 100-pound sheep, yielding approximately 42 pounds of lamb. We used to raise more. However, we've found that, for our liking, we prefer eating beef more often than lamb, so we increased our beef and decreased our lamb production (however, we always raise more than one because they're happier animals this way).
- Turkeys - We always raise a few turkeys each year. One for the Thanksgiving day spatchcock turkey, then a couple of others to either roast and eat whole or can for the pantry. Our son also raises extra turkeys to sell in the fall.
- Geese - We have a free-ranging pair of geese on our homestead that generally breed each year. So, we'll usually butcher a few geese throughout the year.
- Salmon - Carolyn has found some family-owned companies that travel to Alaska each year, fish for salmon, flash-freeze the meat and then bring it back down to our area to sell. This is considered a treat for us, not something we're consuming on a weekly basis.
- Hunting & Fishing - We then fill in the gaps by hunting for deer and elk and some fishing throughout the year.
All in all, this adds up to about 1,500 to 2,000 pounds of meat each year for our family.
It goes without saying, but 1,500 pounds of meat does not equate to 1,500 pounds of animals. We must understand the difference between live, hanging, and cut weights. On average, you can expect the difference between live and cut weight to be about ⅓. This is a VERY ROUGH rule of thumb and is based on butchering and feeding practices.
It's very important to run true numbers based on the actual percentages below (see graph) to check that you're getting the right amount of meat for your family and from your animals.
Again, as a rough estimate, whatever the amount of meat you want to eat yearly, you'll want to multiply that by three. For example, if your family consumes 1,000 pounds of meat a year, you'll need approximately 3,000 pounds of live weight distributed between your animals (excluding poultry but including hogs, lamb, game meat and beef).
Understanding Terminology
Live Weight
Live weight is the weight of the animal at the time of butchering. Or what the animal weighs "on hoof." This is not the final weight of the animal or how much meat the animal will provide.
Remember, the animal has skin, bones, blood and other parts that all add up to that live weight. We're all for utilizing as much of the animal as possible, which is why we always save the bones for making broth, the blood, feathers and any other waste to add to our compost pile. (Learn more about adding meat and blood to your compost here.)
Homesteading Hack: Save the highly nutritious organ meats and learn how to prepare them for even more cost benefit. Start by making homemade organ meat seasoning or Savory Beef Tongue (Fajitas de Lengua).
Our hope is that nothing from the animal is wasted.
Hanging Weight
The hanging weight (also called the hot carcass weight) of an animal is the weight after slaughter but before butchering. This is the weight once the bowels, organs, skin, and usually, the head have been removed and the blood drained from the animal.
When using a butcher, this is the weight they'll use for their processing fees (how much per pound they charge for butchering).
Cut Weight
The cut weight is the actual take-home weight of the animal. Keep in mind that many animals will still have bones (such as chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and even certain cuts of beef or pork), so you'll need to take this into consideration in your annual amount of meat.
Percentage of Live Weight to Cut Weight
The real trick when figuring out how many animals to raise for a year's worth of meat is to know the difference between the live and cut weight. Then, you can reverse-engineer to know how many animals you need to raise (or purchase) each year.
The chart below lists averages based on commercial meat breeds. If you're working with heritage breeds, understand that the percentages will be on the lower end. Do your research based on the breed you're interested in.
| Animal | % of Live Weight to Cut Weight | Live Weight by Animal |
|---|---|---|
| Beef Cow | The cut weight of a cow will be about 41-50% of the live weight. | 1200 pounds |
| Pork | The cut weight of a pig/hog will be about 53-60% of the live weight. | 250 pounds |
| Lamb, Venison, Elk | The cut weight of lamb, venison or elk will be about 35% of the live weight. | 120 pounds |
A few things will affect the percentage of cut weight from an animal, such as the breed, how the animal was raised and finished, if your animal was unhealthy, or if you exclude a lot of bones.
Ways to increase this yield are to finish out your animals properly, learn the basic principles of raising happy, healthy animals (like the deep bedding method), and learn how to butcher meat yourself. When we butcher our meat, the percentage of our meat yield is always on the higher end.
What Kinds of Meat Can Be Raised?
Meat Chickens
First on our list of meat to raise at home are chickens. They're considered the "gateway" animal because they're fairly easy to raise, take up very little space, and can be raised in about 8-12 weeks.
Raising 60-70 chickens will give you approximately 400 pounds of meat. You can raise this many chickens in about two chicken tractors or one Happy Farmer Mobile Chicken Coop. Learn more about raising meat chickens. Be sure to give yourself about 15% padding and order more birds than your end goal because you will lose some.
Don't forget about butchering expenses! Chickens are fairly easy to butcher yourself, however, it does require specialty equipment. If you don't already have this equipment, take that into account. There are some areas where you can rent chicken butchering equipment for a weekend which is a great option when getting started.
If you're looking to invest in chicken butchering equipment, this will add up to another couple thousand dollars. It will eventually pay for itself, but it's an upfront investment that often goes overlooked. Our recommendation is to invite friends and family for a chicken butchering day where you all pitch in. Many hands make light work, then you can send your volunteers home with a few chickens for their efforts.
Meat Rabbits
If space is a major concern then raising meat rabbits might be best for you. Rabbits reproduce very quickly, so you will have a constant supply of meat that doesn't all need to be butchered at once.
If you want more information, we highly recommend checking out Daniel Salatin's knowledge on raising meat rabbits.
Pigs
From chickens or rabbits, the next best step in raising backyard meat is pigs. You can pasture pigs, but you don't have to, so if you're limited in space they're still an option.
They're very easy to raise, and you get a good variety of meat and lard from one animal. The lard allows you to start replacing oils and butter in your cooking, so it's a great dual-purpose animal.
Pork can also be cured very easily (learn how to cure bacon here) and, therefore, can be stored long-term without the need for refrigeration or additional preservation supplies.
Pigs can also be fed a wide variety of foods like kitchen scraps, excess milk from the dairy cow or whey leftover from cheese-making.
Sheep & Goats
If you've had lamb or goat meat in the past and you have the opinion that you don't like them, try some home-raised lamb and goat before writing them off as a possible meat animal to raise.
Sheep are easy to handle and don't require too much space for shelter, but you will want to have some pasture for them to graze.
A word of caution on both sheep and goats. Sheep will get themselves stuck in anything and everything they can. They're very curious animals, and that often leads to stuck situations (for a good laugh, be sure to click that link to see one of our sheep with its head stuck in a bucket!).
Goats, on the other hand, will try to climb anything and everything they can. They have a natural tendency to climb, so be sure to anticipate that and even give them places to climb to keep them happier.
Goats can survive on pasture, but they're actually browsers and do well in areas where they can browse.
Goats can be a great dual-purpose animal if you're looking for both milk and meat. Check out this podcast we did with Anne of All Trades about raising goats for milk and this post for a delicious chevre cheese recipe.
Beef
Just because the animal is bigger doesn't mean it's harder to raise! Sometimes cattle can be easier to keep contained and fed than many of the other animals. However, they do require adequate space to graze.
Angus steers are generally more high-strung than many other breeds of cattle, so we no longer raise this breed and now stick with Herefords.
Remember that a steer will take a couple of years to raise, so plan accordingly and keep your herd growing each year.
Hunting & Fishing
If you live in an area where hunting and fishing are readily available, then this can be a very feasible way to fill your freezers. However, depending on where you live, hunting and fishing can be a recreational sport that includes the added costs of travel, time off work, equipment, etc.
Something I keep in mind when hunting is not to wait for that trophy buck or bull with the giant rack. I'd rather have a sure thing and choose the younger bucks, or, if your state allows doe hunting, a nice-sized doe. A doe or cow elk will be some of the best meat from wild game you've ever tasted.
Tips for Raising Meat Animals
Raise More Than One
When buying animals to raise, many are herd animals and prefer to have a "buddy" or a companion. If you're going to raise a goat, get two goats. If you're going to raise a pig or sheep, get at least two! The animals will be happier and healthier.
If you don't need that much meat, see if you can go in on the animals with a neighbor, family, or a friend. It's better for the animal, and you'll find it easier on yourself if your animals aren't lonely.
Understand Butchering Costs
When raising meat, it's always most cost-effective if you can butcher and process the meat yourself.
Taking a few courses on butchering meat can go a long way in building your confidence. It's not as complicated as it seems.
If you're going to use a butcher, we recommend getting on their list well in advance, as we've heard of butchers being booked out for two years! Be sure to check out this post on what you need to know before butchering day, so you're fully prepared.
Options if You Can't Raise Meat
Not all of us are at a place where we can raise our meat. If this is you, we encourage you to source your meat from a local farmer. Do your research to ensure they follow the farming and feeding practices you agree with.
This can be a great way to help support local businesses, build your local economy, and fill your freezers with good, high-quality meat.
When more local farmers know families want to buy a quarter, half, or whole animal, they can increase the number of animals they raise each year, which helps build up sufficiency within communities.
Keep Records
In everything we do here on the homestead, we always want to keep records to see what's working and what's not. Then, we can make appropriate adjustments based on data instead of guesses.
One way or another, start coming up with a plan for how to get or raise a year's worth of meat. Grocery store prices are only rising, so figuring out where to start now is best!
More Posts You May Enjoy
- Mineral Supplements for Livestock
- How to Save Money on Animal Feed
- Nutritional Benefits of Organ Meats and Cooking Tips
- Raising Goats 101: For Dairy with Anne of All Trades
- Building Resilience with Justin Rhodes
- How to Grow a Year’s Worth of Food with Melissa K. Norris
- Health Benefits of Going Off-Grid (Off Grid with Doug and Stacy)
