We are fortunate enough to have plenty of small butcher shops and enough small family owned farms that we can purchase a half or whole steer when butchering comes around. Parents raised a cow when I was a kid, I couldn't eat the meat. with that said, if I had to do it in order to feed my kids, I would do it in a heartbeat, but given that we have such a wonderful local source of fresh grass fed beef, I prefer to purchase it. My husband hunts and it really doesn't bother me to butcher deer.
Neighbors have several steer, they really need to take a good look at some photos, way too thin for one and two year olds. They are kept on approx, 2 acres, but there are 5-6 steer and there is very little hay ever offered, just short grass. I always refer to them as breakfast, lunch and dinner when talking to my kids.
But I'm fencing off more of our property to start again. My grandfather was a small rancher and we always had a cow or two in his herd for raising our own beef. I don't want to do it on the same scale as my grandfather. First of all I don't have that much acreage but I do want to raise my own beef again. I'm also going to be raising my own chickens, some just for eggs and some fryers. We'll bring the beef to the slaughter house (too big a job for me to want to even try) but we'll probably process our own chickens. I currently have a few ducks that need to be eaten. I bought the ducks for my working dogs to learn how to herd them and I'm done with them for now. I probably won't raise ducks again until we have our pond dug. I'm not wild about pork generally enough to want to have that much pork in my freezer otherwise pigs would be in the food chain too.
