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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Buying 1/2 of a cow
Sorry I have a lot of questions today. 
I was thinking some of you buy 1/2 or 1/4 cow for freezing, right?
How do I find a place to do this? What comes in 1/2 of a cow? I honestly have no idea. lol!
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Re: Buying 1/2 of a cow
A 1/2 a cow is a TON of meat. My family (4 sets of adults) just split a whole cow and we have a ton of meat just out of the 1/4 we got. We have it all in our large deep freeze, and it is over half full.
As far as what comes in it, you can split it up however you want. We don't really eat things like roast often, so we got mostly ground beef, a couple of roasts, and some steaks. I can't help you with where though since my parents got it somewhere in/near the Quad Cities.
I love doing this because it means I always have a protein on hand to cook. It's much cheaper in the long run, too, but be aware that the up front cost can be kind of shocking at first.
We don't do cow, but we do a whole deer. Since we don't have a deep freeze we keep a majority of the meat at my IL's house and we restock every time we go to see them.
Lots of times you will work with the processor to choose what cuts you want. We do a lot of ground deer.
I've come across several places that you can buy from, but they are escaping me. HA! Try Iowa Food Cooperative or do a google search.
Neena Mae. 1/7/10
"A baby nursing at a mother's breast is an undeniable affirmation of our rootedness in nature." - David Suzuki
If you're interested in this, let me know, my parents are going to be doing a cow soon, and the meat is ALWAYS awesome. The farm they buy from raises cattle the way my dad/grandpa did. Meaning corn 1st/ hay second- if that makes sense to you. Anyway, they'll be looking for someone to go in on it with them. Growing up they always did a half, and it lasts about a year-for us it did.
All you have to do is call the locker- usually Indianola Meat Locker- best price, and tell them what you want. IE Brisket/Roasts/Steaks... and so on.
Our family of 3 buys a 1/4 cow about once every 18 months. You can decide how you want the meat processed. We usually get several roasts (arm, chuck, etc.), T bone/ribeye/sirloin/round steaks, brisket, and then we get the rest made into ground hamburger. The last time we had over 238 pounds of ground meat and we made half of it into 2 pound packages and half into 1 pound packages. We buy a portion of the cow through the family of one of DH's coworkers. They usually process one for their family but can't eat an entire cow so we buy 1/4 of it and then it gets processed to order at a meat processor in Sully. I highly recommend doing this. The cost to us is usually $250-$300 for a 1/4 black angus cow (after processing fees) and it lasts at least a year. Right now I'm spending $10+ for just 3 pounds of ground chuck at the store.
My grandparents were cattle farmers, so my parents did this when we were kids (though I think we got the whole thing.. big family). If it could be made into a steak, it was. We ate a lot of steak for our demographic
There were always some roasts of course and the rest was ground up. We should really do this too. If you have a good experience, let us know. Maybe it'll motivate me to do it.
We processed a deer at a meat locker in Pella. It is right on the square, close to VanderPloeg's (sorry- totally butchered that!) bakery. I wonder if you call them they could give you direction where to purchase a cow?
Pun intended?