Share of one animal
You are buying a fraction of a carcass.
A share is a whole, half, quarter, or sometimes an eighth of a single animal. The farm bills by hanging weight, the weight of the dressed carcass before cutting and trimming, and a processor turns it into the cuts on your cut sheet. You take home roughly 59% of the hanging pounds; the rest is bone, trim, and moisture you never see.
You choose steak thickness, roast sizes, and how much becomes ground beef. You reserve with a deposit, wait for a harvest date, and you need freezer space: a half runs about 5.6 cubic feet at 35 lb per cubic foot.
Box of selected cuts
You are buying what is in the box.
A box is a curated assortment. The seller picks the cuts, seals them, and prices the box as a flat total or by packaged weight. There is no hanging weight and no cut sheet, and usually no wait for a harvest. What you see is what you get, and many boxes ship.
Resellers that sell boxes are labeled in the register and kept out of the farm-gate comparison. A farm that publishes a fixed total with the take-home contents is recorded as a packaged share and shown as published.
| Question | Share of one animal | Box of selected cuts |
|---|---|---|
| Priced per | hanging pound | packaged pound or flat total |
| What a pound includes | bone, trim, and cutting loss you never see | only what is in the box |
| Who chooses the cuts | you, on a cut sheet | the seller |
| When you get it | reserve, then wait for harvest | ships or pickup now |
| Freezer needed | a chest freezer for a half or quarter | usually a kitchen freezer |
| Ground beef | you set the share | fixed |
To compare a share with a box, convert the share rate to take-home dollars: the hanging-weight rate divided by the yield. Using the median of 25 recorded comparable farm offers (a checked sample, not a regional market average) at $7.35 per hanging pound and a 59% yield, that is about $12.54 per packaged pound. A box priced per packaged pound compares with that number, never with the hanging-weight rate.
The decision
Choose by freezer, appetite, and timing.
- A share fits
- if you have the freezer space, will cook the whole animal including roasts and ground, want the lowest cost per take-home pound, and want to choose the cuts.
- A box fits
- if you mainly want steaks and ground, have a small freezer, want beef this week, or are trying a farm before committing to a harvest.
- A packaged share sits between
- when the farm publishes a fixed total and the take-home contents. It is shown as published and not converted into a hanging-weight comparison.
The register records which product each price describes. Only hanging-weight shares with processing stated or included enter the strict comparison; boxes and packaged shares appear exactly as the farm published them.
See the current prices, run a share estimate, read how hanging weight works, or size a share to your household.