Options to get the Piggy to Market

Have you been raising your livestock with all the care in the world and now ready to make the great transition, but you grew too much to keep? Let’s look at your options for selling off that meat to help pay for your next livestock feed costs. 

Marketing the meat

Some of your basics will be just letting people know that you have some available, in what condition are you selling it, and how much you are looking for in selling it. If you are just selling on a rare occasion then you can rely on the older methods of word of mouth or perhaps a simple sign outside your gate can get the job done. Nowadays though it might work a bit faster to make a good and simple Facebook post that gets the information out there and you can add in pictures of either the animal or of how the meat is packaged. If you are posting on Facebook, you might want to make sure you are joining groups that allow the marketing and sale of items such as meat and that it has the audience who will be interested and local to your area. 

If you are interested in a large-scale operation of marketing your meat, it might be worth it to develop a website or attend main events where you can create sustained connections. Making a simple website through places such as Squarespace or Wix are great options to develop an online presence that will reach more people and can be used to provide a point of contact with potential customers and give out basic information. 

Now, with either option you will be asked in what portions you are selling, such as quarter, half, or whole animal or if it is by the type of cut. If you plan to do all of the process yourself you will need to make sure that this is a only for the occasional selling to a friend or trade as you will need to make sure it is processed at a USDA certified facility to market to the general public. You might want to look around to see what meat houses are around your area that you could develop contracts with to get your meat processed and wrapped. You do also have the option to sell the whole live animal for the customer to process themselves. 

That leads to another question you will want to ask yourself about selling meat. Are you selling at live weight or processed meat weight? There are a few other options that you can use to price it out, such as just a set price, but depending on your costs to raise that might lead to a loss rather than any kind of profit. 

Know your cuts

Different livestock will have different cuts that are more desirable than others, so it is good to know what you might be looking at when it comes to marketing out the meat for which method will gain you the most profit. Here are some of the different types of beef and lamb cuts and their prices: