Questions people ask us.

Part of one animal. We sell it as Eighth Beef, Quarter Beef, Half Beef, or Whole Beef, and each is priced per pound of hanging weight — the carcass on the rail at the butcher’s, bone and fat and all, before a single cut is made.

Nobody knows that weight until harvest day, so you pay a deposit when you reserve and the balance once the animal has been weighed. How buying a share works lays out every step, with the figures.

It comes down to how many of you there are and how much freezer you have. In short:

• Eighth Beef — The smallest share we sell. About two shelves of a kitchen freezer. About 55 lbs of beef.
• Quarter Beef — A freezer starter. Roughly a third of a chest freezer. About 110 lbs of beef.
• Half Beef — Our most popular share. Fills a standard chest freezer. About 220 lbs of beef.
• Whole Beef — The best price per pound we offer. Split it with family. About 440 lbs of beef.

Still not sure? Work it out with us — four questions about your table, and nothing is sent anywhere.

Less than the hanging weight, and that is normal. Take-home weight is what you carry out in boxes, after the bones are out, the fat is trimmed and the carcass has hung long enough to age. On a typical sheet about 65% of the hanging weight comes home — more if you keep the bones.

• Eighth Beef hangs at about 75–95 lbs and comes home as roughly 49–61 lbs.
• Quarter Beef hangs at about 150–190 lbs and comes home as roughly 97–123 lbs.
• Half Beef hangs at about 300–380 lbs and comes home as roughly 194–246 lbs.
• Whole Beef hangs at about 600–760 lbs and comes home as roughly 388–492 lbs.

Every one of those is an estimate until the animal is on the scale.

Plenty of people do. One person places the order, pays and collects; how you divide it afterwards is between you, and the butcher packs it as one share either way.

If you would each rather have your own order, your own boxes and your own cut list, buy two smaller shares instead.

Pick a size in the shop and reserve it with the deposit. At checkout you choose the month you want your animal processed — right now January, February, or March are open — and the town you will collect it in.

When it is ready we email you the place, the day and the time window, with a link that opens the spot in Google Maps on your phone.

It reserves an animal in your name, and it is all you are charged when you order. It is not a fee — every dollar of it comes off your total.

• Eighth Beef — $150 deposit
• Quarter Beef — $250 deposit
• Half Beef — $500 deposit
• Whole Beef — $1000 deposit

After harvest day. The butcher weighs the carcass on the rail; we multiply that real weight by your share’s rate, take off the deposit you already paid, and bill the balance before pickup. We ring you with the weight first, so you hear the figure from a person before an invoice arrives.

• Eighth Beef — $9.00 a pound of hanging weight, so a balance of about $525.00 to $705.00
• Quarter Beef — $8.75 a pound of hanging weight, so a balance of about $1062.50 to $1412.50
• Half Beef — $8.50 a pound of hanging weight, so a balance of about $2050.00 to $2730.00
• Whole Beef — $8.00 a pound of hanging weight, so a balance of about $3800.00 to $5080.00

Any total before the scale is an estimate, and we label it as one. Cut-and-wrap is paid to the butcher, not to us.

By card, from the link on the invoice we send. Tap it and pay through Stripe — it takes about a minute on a phone. The printed invoice carries the same link as a square you can point your phone’s camera at.

Or in cash, or by check. Both are fine. We record them against your order by hand, and your order page shows the balance as received.

No. We raise the animal. A licensed processor kills it, hangs it, and cuts and wraps it to your sheet, and they bill you for that work directly. We never see that money, and none of the figures on this site include it.

It is usually charged per pound of hanging weight, with a flat kill fee on top, and around here it runs $1.00 to $1.50 a pound. How buying a share works puts it in its own column for every size, so it is never a surprise at the counter.

Like for like, yes. Line the same cuts up side by side — the steaks, the roasts, the ribs, the ground — and buying them direct from the rancher comes in well under buying every one of them at retail. A share only feels bigger because it is one large number paid twice, instead of a hundred small ones spread over a year.

You also get what the meat case will not sell you: soup bones, the fat for tallow, the big bones for the dog, the organs if you want them. The table on How buying a share works works out what a pound of beef in your freezer costs, before the butcher’s bill for cutting and wrapping.

We will buy it back from you. Not a credit, not a partial, not an argument — we would rather have it back than have you eat a year of something you do not enjoy.

Two fair conditions, and they are the only two. Tell us early — if there is roughly 90% of your meat left and you are not satisfied, we will buy it back. And the original deposit is not refundable, because it reserved and held an animal in your name that nobody else could buy. Ring us; it is a conversation, not a claims process.

A licensed processor. We raise the animal and bring it in; they kill it, hang it to age, weigh it on the rail and cut and wrap it to your sheet.

Not unless you want to. Say “the house sheet” and we will fill it in for you, the way the cuts on our own shelf are already cut. Most first-timers do, and most of them keep doing it.

If you would rather choose, the cut sheet guide walks through every decision on the form — steak thickness, roast size, how much goes to ground — with what most families pick and what choosing otherwise costs you.

Yes — it is your animal, and they are all on the cut sheet: soup bones, marrow bones (ask for them split lengthwise), suet for rendering into tallow, the big bones for the dog, and the heart, liver, tongue and oxtail.

You have to ask for them on the sheet. Anything left unticked is discarded, and you cannot ring a fortnight later and ask for the liver back. The cut sheet guide has the detail.

Breakfast sausage, brats, summer sausage, snack sticks and jerky are all on a typical sheet. It is beef you already own taken a step further, and that step is charged by the pound, on top of cut-and-wrap. Cured and smoked items sometimes go out to a second shop, which adds time before you can collect. Most first-timers skip it the first year.

In four towns, and you choose which when you reserve:

• Kamiah (local) — 2148 Glenwood Rd, Kamiah, ID 83536. At the ranch.
• Boise
• Coeur d'Alene
• Lewiston

The day and the time window for your town come by email when your beef is ready.

Sometimes. A share is usually collected from one of the pickup towns, but we do deliver one now and then by arrangement — ring us on 208-507-0766 and ask.

Cuts and bundles are simpler: when your cart holds only those, the checkout offers local delivery and shows you the fee before you pay.

No. There is no carrier shipping, at any distance. Beef leaves us frozen, and we would rather hand it to you cold than trust a freezer box to a parcel truck.

Coolers. Everything is frozen hard when it leaves the processor and you want it to stay that way — if it is warm out, head straight home.

• Eighth Beef — one large cooler on pickup day.
• Quarter Beef — one large cooler on pickup day.
• Half Beef — two large coolers on pickup day.
• Whole Beef — four large coolers on pickup day.

Cut-and-wrap is settled with the processor when you collect.

Boxed beef packs at somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds per cubic foot — dense when it is mostly one-pound packs of ground, looser with bone-in roasts, ribs and a whole brisket in the box.

• Eighth Beef — 1.4–1.8 cu ft. Fits in the freezer drawer over a kitchen fridge.
• Quarter Beef — 2.8–3.7 cu ft. Fits in the freezer drawer over a kitchen fridge.
• Half Beef — 5.5–7.3 cu ft. Fits in a standard 7 cu ft chest freezer.
• Whole Beef — 11–14.7 cu ft. Fits in a big 15 cu ft chest freezer.

Yes. It comes back from the processor cut to your sheet, wrapped, labelled and frozen hard, boxed and ready to go straight into your freezer.

We are at 2148 Glenwood Rd, Kamiah, ID 83536, and yes — kids are welcome, and so are dogs if they will stay in the truck. Visit the ranch has the hours and directions; any other time, ring first and we will meet you at the shop.

Yes. When you buy a share we tell you the animal it came from — its name, what it weighed off the rail, which field it was raised in and what it was fed. There is one animal behind your order, not a day’s worth of them blended together.

Yes, all of it. No growth implants and nothing hormonal in the feed, at any point in the animal’s life. It is how the herd is run, not a label on some of it.

Yes and no. Most of the work goes into keeping cattle from getting sick — a strong vitamin and mineral routine, a balanced diet, clean water, maintained facilities, and garlic in the ration. When a calf is sick we try homeopathic remedies first, and if those are not working we treat it rather than let it suffer.

Any animal we treat is marked and leaves through the local sales barn. It is never sold as one of our beef shares. The whole answer is worth the read.

Primarily grass fed, and grain supplemented at the end. Summer on pasture, the fall on a cover crop we plant every year, and as they near butcher time a barley, corn and oat mix — locally sourced and non-GMO. How buying a share works tells it in full.