How much does it cost and how do I pay?

Our beef costs $4.45/lb for a whole beef, $4.60lb for a half, and $4.75/lb for a quarter. This is based on the hanging weight. You can expect a 20%-30% shrink between your hanging weight and the final amount you take home. This will vary based on how you have your beef cut. Our hanging weight for a whole is 400-500 lbs, 200-250 lbs for a half, and 100-125 lbs for a quarter. Additionally, you need to pay a cut and wrap fee that goes directly to our butcher. That costs around $.90/lb plus a processing fee that works out to about $25/quarter. Call our butcher, Quadra-K, for complete information on pricing. Their number is (509) 624-9760. You pay the cut and wrap fee directly to the butcher when you pick up your order. Please show our butchers the honor they deserve! Our business could not exist without them. We encourage you to include a gratuity when you pick up your order.

We require a $250 deposit to reserve your beef. You can pay online here. You can place a deposit any time after the first of the year for the season you want to purchase beef in. The earlier you can place your deposit, the better, to ensure that we have beef left. Once you place your order, we will schedule you on a butcher date. Our harvest season runs from July to October. When your beef is ready, we will contact you with the final balance. You will receive an email invoice that can be paid by check or credit card.

Why do you charge based on the hanging weight? Why do I have to pay the butcher separately?

We butcher our beef under a WSDA Custom Exempt License. This is a special license that allows us to kill animals on farm instead of transporting them several hours to a USDA inspected facility. This license is only for animals being harvested for direct consumption by their owner. To comply with these requirements, we charge an up-front deposit and then bill you based on the “hot hanging weight,” the weight of the animal immediately after harvest, after skinning and evisceration. These rules also require you to pay for your butcher fees separately when you pick up your beef or lamb. We recognize that this can be a bit confusing, but it allows us to work with our long-time local partners and eliminates the stress of having to ship animals 100+ miles. This ensures that we can offer you the highest quality, most humane product possible.

What the heck do I get when i buy a side/half beef?

Here is a list of standard cuts you may receive for half a beef.

Am I getting a hindquarter or a forequarter?

We sell mixed quarters, so you will be getting a mix of front and back cuts. For this reason we do not offer custom cuts on quarters! You will receive a standard cut and wrap package.

What does grass fed mean? Is that different from grass finished?

Grass finished means that the animal was brought to butcher weight only by eating grass. This used to be synonymous with grass fed, but some producers now advertise their product as grass fed, even if they are finishing their animals on grain. You may also see beef advertised as "corn free" that is finished on other grains. Lazy R Beef is 100% grass fed and finished and is never fed any grain.

What do your cows do in the winter?

Our cows are on pasture 365 days a year. They are very hardy animals, and we have developed our herd to be especially resilient and suited for range conditions. If conditions are especially bad, the herd will huddle together for warmth under the trees. We feed hay from December to May, and we also plan our grazing so that the cattle have winter forage from pasture as well. Our winter grazing is an important part of our soil health program, cycling nutrients back into the earth and concentrating impact with strategic placement for supplemental feed.

Isn't eating beef bad for the environment?

This is a nuanced question which is typically oversimplified. There are certainly many potential negative environmental consequences to “conventional” beef production. However, our approach is anything but conventional. At the Lazy R we strive to grow beef that will actually shrink your carbon footprint by sequestering more carbon per head through our progressive grazing techniques than we are releasing through production. We've done a baseline carbon analysis and since implementing holistic management and in some places we have tripled our soil organic carbon. We have also participated in WSU's OFoot carbon footprint calculator pilot and we showed the lowest carbon footprint of any of the farms participating. Other work with WSU has shown improvement in soil carbon across the ranch. And of course, there is much more to the environment than carbon. Our livestock share the ranch with many hundreds of species of flora and fauna, and we view maximizing biodiversity and preserving wildlife habitat as one of our most important tasks.

Do you use growth hormones or antibiotics?

We do not give our animals any growth hormones and antibiotics will only be given in a life-or-death situation. This sort of situation comes up every few years. We do take the health and well-being of our animals very seriously, and for this reason, when antibiotics are absolutely necessary, we will use them. 99.99999% of the time antibiotics are not necessary and very, very rarely do we have any health problems in our herd. If an animal slated for butcher falls ill, they will be treated and then removed from our herd. Our butcher beef is 100% hormone and antibiotic free. No medications are administered to butcher animals in the year prior to harvest.

I don't know how to cook grass fed beef. Help!

It is important to understand that cooking grass fed beef is different from cooking corn fed. There are many resources online to provide a good overview of some techniques that can be employed. This cookbook is a favorite around our kitchen. We are a big fan of using the sous-vide method for our steaks. It's the best method we've found to get consistent, juicy, and tender steaks. You can try out  this low-cost sous-vide hack. Here are written instructions. If you want to graduate to a fancier gadget, we love the Anova sous vide cooker. 

The most important thing to remember is you generally want to go for low and slow cooking methods. Grass fed beef has less fat in it, which makes the protein a little more delicate. If you're still stumped, contact us, and we'll be happy to give you a cooking lesson.

What is "custom meat?"

"Custom" beef is butchered exactly the way you want it. You can contact our butcher, Quadra-K, to give them instructions. If you don't have a specific preference, or if you are ordering a quarter, they will use their standard cut and wrap package, which is what our family personally uses.

What kind of cows do you have? Will I get a steer or a heifer or a cow?

We raise a black angus/Aberdeen angus cross. Aberdeen Angus are an Australian breed that come from the traditional angus bloodlines. In the US, angus have been bred up in size to perform well in feedlots. Aberdeens perform particularly well in pasture-based conditions. Our mother cows are standard angus and we have one full blood Lowline bull named Maka and two half blood or “Moderator” bulls named Jethro and Baby.

We butcher both steers and heifers at two years of age. There is no difference in flavor between a steer and a heifer. Heifers tend to be somewhat smaller but a bit fatter. A cow is a female that has had at least one calf. As animals age, the meat becomes less tender. We do not butcher cows, as a rule, unless they are being ground up for burger, when the tenderness factor is not an issue.

Can I come visit?

Yes! We are always happy to have our customers out for tours. However, during the COVID pandemic, we are suspending tours. Our cows are often visible from the road though! Contact us and we’ll be happy to let you know where to drive by and see them!

Can I come work for you?

We are not hiring help at this time. We are happy to accept applications to keep on file for future opportunities. Contact Beth.

 What’s the New Cowgirl Camp?

The New Cowgirl Camp is a 5 day intensive course for women interested in learning the basics of Holistic Management and ranching. It is hosted at the Lazy R Ranch and is co-instructed by Beth and Sandra Matheson, DVM, of Matheson Farms. We are assembling an army of cowgirls to save the world. To register click here.