Bought a chuck roast to cook in the smoker. That sucker was $8.79 per pound. Looks like the smoker will have a quiet summer. Checked on the local processors to see about processing a beef. They are booked up at least 6 months ahead.

Start looking up some local farmers and meat processing. Help your local farmer and not get any of that overpriced grocery store meat, until they come to their senses and price meat for the working man and not rich elites.

I saw you looked up a processor, but there's thousands out there that you might not know or heard of.

Luckily, I picked up meat and put in my freezer before all this SHTF meat costs when I saw meat on some great sales at my local Price Choppers.

A lot of locally finished beef is very lean with little marbling. Keep that in mind before spending a couple grand on a processed animal you may not enjoy.

The 4H & FFA kids usually raise a nice fat steer to sell at the county fair, they usually do a top notch job at it.

I saw $9/# ground at my local grocery store yesterday.  It's sure nice to look out my back window and see the two fat steers that are ready to go to the locker in three weeks.  By the time the other 20 are fed out, the market will probably be back in the tank!

Everybody I know has been asking about beef, I have no shortage, but getting it into a butcher anytime soon is another story.  I booked an appointment yesterday for mid Dec, also, for all you guys looking for beef, beware the “grass finished” stuff, ask for a sample, I won’t sell anything I wouldn’t personally eat, and anything I’ve ever tried that was “grass finished” is more rank/gamey than any trophy buck anyone has tried feeding me.

That is the very reason that I like to see the meat before I plunk the dollars down. I do not want the lean grass finished stuff that is usually tough and stringy. Have tried it and wound up taking my false teeth out and putting them on the plate with the meat. Like my meat with the fat marbled all thru it.

We raise dexters, I have a couple for whatever reason that are runts.  I normally use a inspected processor as well sell our meat in our store.  However waiting times are long now.  I just processed one myself, as we do our deer.  A tractor with pallet forks comes in handy . The sucky part is when my meat grinder gave up the ghost during the middle of grinding!  I hand cranked on a old grinder till I thought my arm would fall off.... needless to say a new grinder will be here this week.

With the looming meat shortage and ballooned prices be aware of the meat peddlers driving around in a pickup with a freezer sitting in the back offering prime beef at cheap prices. One lady that I know bought $100.00 of meat off some peddler and she swears that it came off a 40 yr old cow.  She says a crock pot can't even get it tender.

We were talking about splitting a beef with another family.  Someone there chimed in, and said "sure, if you want it next year".  I guess some of the local meat processors, which are normally a couple of months out, are currently booking for the end of January 2021...

I'm hearing similar lead times from multiple sources in Mid MO.  As a small scale beef producer, I think it will be good for me in the short term, because it will help demand for local raised beef.  I suspect that a year after this slows down though the majority of the folks that just became interested in the local raised and butchered beef will lose interest and go back to buying their beef two weeks at a time out of the grocery store (which is fine by me).  

Buying a side of beef right now is like trying to purchase your first AR in 2013.  To anyone that is interested in buying local beef to hedge your bets against market disruptions like this, your best bet is to form a long term relationship with a local trustworthy farmer and locker.

ETA: By hedging your bets, you need to also realize that by purchasing a 1/2 or whole beef, you may not beat the price of shopping around your five local grocery stores for each weeks Manager's Special, but you will probably "flatten the curve" of the up's and down's of the grocery store pricing.