Does anyone have any statistics about Dexters for killing out %, roughly the amount of joints you get etc. I know it is as long as a piece of string but i am looking for the average. So far i have sent two Dexters to the slaughterhouse one short 170kg DW and one non-short 224 kg DW. The first ( the short) i was happy about. Again the non-short was lean around half inch of fat on the steaks and he looked well on the hoof. However we ended up with a lot of fatty mince roughly, from memory 170lbs . I feel that I am not being treated right at the cutting end and there are things not right so i need some sort of indicators to know where i stand. A fact i know is when i killed two Hereford Heifers for ourselves during F&M 2001 we only had 185lbs of mince from the two? Any Ideas or thoughts welcomed.
Second try!! The board does that to me on a regular basis, tells me I am not logged on when I am.
These are figures for drought stricken babies, from weaning to 15 months, because we are now officially in our 11th year of drought, and have no finishing quality pasture. They do never-the-less look reasonably well covered.
Hook weight is about 56% of hoof weight.
Meat is about 63% of hook weight.
Thanks Margaret the hoof to hook seems reasonable 50 --60% is acceptable but the meat weight from dead weight seems high--- it appears that you only end up with a quarter of your original beast? I think thats right. There are a few cuts there i am not familiar with and your sausage would i suppose be meat you would otherwise mince- making mince a total of 35%. This doesnt sound to bad if you consider that i was given almost half of my steer back as mince!!!!! I think I need to have a more in depth discussion with the butchery dept boss. Preferably when he doesn't have a knife ion his hand ???
At the moment I am between abattoirs and butchers. The butcher we have at the moment is fine if you practically stand over him and tell exactly what you want. First time I was given fatty mince, I asked why and was told that people wanted the weight so "everything" went in. Next time I asked for it to be trimmed down (and watched) and the mince was the best ever tasted. I also had to be very specific about the cuts and how I wanted them labeled. Different areas of the country (and in our county) calls all the cuts different names (this can be very confusing). There are dexter people who seem to have some really good butchers and I am going to try one of them. The early stages of getting into beef seems to have a lot of trial and error.
In the summer we took our first ever dexter to the local, very small slaughterhouse (children came too!) and they also butchered her for us. It was a lovely experience, even for the children, they were asked what meat they wanted to get and told about the procedure. They watched her being unloaded and quietly and calmly walk into the unit and went to collect her in boxes afterwards. It has made the eating bit nicer for them I think, they do ask for her and are not at all put off that they had been feeding and stroking her. I am 100% certain that we got everything back as I weighed it all. She was 180kg dw and we only got back 8kg of superb lean mince as she wasn't that fatty.
Well that is fantastic H H you must have had a lot more cuts like brisket neck and any thing else you can think of ??? was your 180kg a short. You also say she wasn't fat well Totter only had about half inch at the most on his steaks and topside etc. So 8kg is amazing :p
As an example of the 56% & 63% above, a 300 kg steer would be about 168kg on the hook, and make about 105.84kg of meat. If my calculations are correct that is about 35.28%.
Maths is not a strong point, so I am happy to stand corrected if I have botched the calculations.
The last 3 Dexters I sent seemed to generate a significantly large proportion of lean mince against what else came back. I didn't have sausages and burgers made this time which would have used up some but there still seemed to be too much in comparison to, say, diced stewing steak And very little braising steak. I wonder if we use the same establishment, welshdexterboy?
Thankyou all for your comments. I worked outlast night (monday) the weight cold 224kg and the weight brought home 171kg gave me roughly 71% of dead weight but 81kg of mince. I spoke to the boss today and he looked at the figures, cuts etc and told me they have put too much through the mincer, so i was happy with his explanaition and he promised to keep an eye on the boys in future ??? can't say fairer than that. Trouble is it will be next year before the next steer goes. Clive when you say go to downloads do you mean on your site DBO?
We were very pleased with our return, she was a non short. We like BBQ and roast, so most cuts went that way, with a small selection of casserole meats.
Well unless you travel a lot further than you have to for your abbatoir, welshdexterboy, we are using the same establishment. The problem with changing to another is that the other option needs animals booked in such a long time in advance which makes it very difficult to organise, and I don't know if they would be any better.
Thanks for the download Clive it was extremely interesting. With the age and size as well it gave a nice overall picture of what you are talkiing about. I compared my own figures and overall I was pleased with the result I just need to get the boys to cut rather than mince. My bigest problem is that I only go with one or two a year until I have more cows calving, six next year and then one more heifer the year after. What a dilema you need heifers to increase the herd and you need steers to keep your customers happy??? Ah well softly softly catch a monkey.Sylvia i see by your profile you are in Carms so perhaps we do.Are you a member of the West Wales group? ???
. I feel that I am not being treated right at the cutting end and there are things not right so i need some sort of indicators to know where i stand. A fact i know is when i killed two Hereford Heifers for ourselves during F&M 2001 we only had 185lbs of mince from the two? Any Ideas or thoughts welcomed.
