Buying a share of beef? See the weight you'll take home and the cut-category breakdown.
Typical beef carcass: 600–900 lb hanging
Half — take-home
67% of your hanging share
251 lb
Half — hanging share
375 lb
Freezer space needed
1 cu ft per 35 lb packaged
7.2 cu ft
Cut category breakdown
Steaks
50 lb
20% · Ribeye, NY strip, tenderloin, sirloin, flat iron
Roasts
75 lb
30% · Chuck, round, rump, tri-tip
Ground beef
101 lb
40% · 1–2 lb packs, typically 80/20 or 85/15
Stew, short ribs, brisket, shanks
25 lb
10% · Stew cubes, bone-in short ribs, brisket, soup bones
Buying a half or quarterof beef is the classic entry point to farm-direct meat. You’re splitting the cost (and the freezer load) with one or three other households and getting every primal — steaks, roasts, ground, and stew — from the same animal.
A typical grass-fed steer hangs at 600–900 lb. A half is roughly 300–450 lb hanging, which becomes about 200–300 lb of wrapped meat in your freezer. A quarter is half of that. Plan for ~1 cubic foot of freezer space per 35 lb.
The breakdown above is the industry-standard split when you let your butcher work a typical “steaks + roasts + ground” cut sheet. If you ask for more ground (common for weeknight cooking) or more steaks (for entertainers), the percentages shift — see Beef Cuts Breakdown for primal-by-primal detail.
Quarter buyers note:a “quarter beef” in the farm world is almost always a split half— you’re sharing a half with one other buyer, and each of you gets half of each cut category. This is different from a true front-quarter or hind-quarter, which contain very different cuts.
your_hanging = whole_hanging × portion_fraction (quarter=0.25, half=0.5, whole=1)
your_takehome = your_hanging × (takehome_% ÷ 100)
cut_category_lbs = your_takehome × category_% (steaks 20%, roasts 30%, ground 40%, stew/brisket 10%)
Beef Cuts Breakdown
What actually comes out of a beef carcass — primal by primal, pound by pound, with the cuts you'll get.
Freezer Capacity
How much meat fits in 7, 15, 20 cubic feet — sized to half beef, whole pig, whole lamb.
Whole Animal True Cost
The $/lb math buyers get wrong — turn any live/hanging/take-home quote into out-the-door cost and compare to grocery retail.
Pick whether you are buying a half or a quarter share of a beef. Enter the whole-animal hanging weight (your farmer or processor will give you this), and the calculator returns your share of hanging weight, your final take-home weight after cut and wrap, and an approximate breakdown across primal categories — steaks, roasts, ground, ribs, brisket. A quarter ("split half") is half of a half, so two buyers split one half of an animal and each get a balanced mix; the calculator handles both arrangements.
Most first-time bulk-meat buyers underestimate how much beef a half is — typically 220-250 lb of packaged meat. That is two to three years of beef for a couple, or a year for a family of four cooking beef most days. Understanding share size before you buy means you do not run out of freezer space, do not over-commit cash, and can split a half with a neighbor confidently. The breakdown also tells you whether a half gives enough premium cuts (a single ribeye section is only 8-10 lb on the whole animal — divided in four, that is 2 lb of ribeye for a quarter buyer).
Quarter shares are typically "mixed quarters" — half of a half — not literal front and hind quarters, which produce wildly different cut mixes. Premium-cut math assumes standard processor cut sheets; choosing more steaks and fewer roasts will shift the breakdown but not change total pounds. Numbers do not include offal (heart, liver, tongue) which most processors include free if you request them.