05/30/2026
How Much Meat Will You Get?
We get asked very often: “How much meat will we get”? This is not a simple question to answer. There are several factors that go into this answer. Here are a few factors:
1. Build of the animal. How much muscle/fat is on the animal. Older animals sometimes have bigger bones or a lot of extra fat.
2. Cutting Preferences. De-boned and all fat trimmed off versus bone-in cuts with nice fat cap on the cuts.
First step is Slaughtering. This is removing the head, hide/skin, blood and insides of the animal. You will lose 40-50% of the animals’ live weight during this step.
Second step is Hanging/Aging. This step can be as short as a few days for Pork, Lamb, Goat to 2 or more weeks for Beef and Bison. Moisture weight will be lost while carcass is drying.
Third step is Processing. This is cutting the meat into ready-to-cook portions/cuts. This step will remove bones, tendons, cartilage and excess fat that is not wanted. We also remove lymph nodes, scar tissue, etc that would affect the quality of your meat. You will lose more of the hanging weight during this process.
Beef Example:
Live Weight – 1000 lbs
Hanging Weight – 500 to 650 lbs
Take Home – 250 to 400 lbs
Pork Example:
Live Weight – 200 lbs
Hanging Weight – 100 – 145 lbs
Take Home – 50 – 80 lbs
Note: Keeping the offals (heart, liver, tongue, kidneys), extra fat, bones, will increase your Take Home weight.
