| Trint - 2/6/2026 11:13 Ground a cow with bad hips out had $2.3/lb of burger in processing as I recall. Let some go to established customers for $5/lb, cheap but cow would have bought nothing at auction. Should probably have ground the old bull sent to auction that brought less than a $1/lb. To answer your question to anywhere near current fat values you are going to need to be $7-8/lb of burger. Or figure on what you think it would auction for plus your processing cost in your neighborhood.
This is what I’m getting at. Grinding a good steer for hamburger sounds somewhat foolish.
Grinding a low value animal (broken leg, cow, bull, etc) into hamburger creates an opportunity to get more value out of it than what a packer (or rendering) might offer. Even if you’re not getting the top of the market, it might be more than you’d get otherwise.
Every hog I’ve ever put in my freezer had something wrong with it that would get docked at a packer. But nothing that would affect meat quality and I will not butcher a boar.
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Burgering a finished steer
