What Cuts Do You Get in a Half Cow? (Full Breakdown)

If you're trying to figure out what cuts you get in a half cow before you drop $3,570 on one, good. That's the right question to ask. A lot of farms will quote you a weight and a price and leave the rest vague. I'm not going to do that.

Here's exactly what's in a Half Share at Dirty Dog Farm: around 200 pounds of dry-aged beef, broken into steaks, roasts, ground, and the stuff most people forget about (bones, organs, fat, or you can swap those out). Every cut is dry-aged. Every cut is vacuum-sealed, labeled, and shipped frozen on dry ice. And every cut costs the same per pound as every other cut in the share, which is the part most people miss.

Below is the full half cow cuts list: categories, weights, piece counts, and what to do with each one.

What You Get in a Half Cow at Dirty Dog Farm

A Half Share is 200 pounds of take-home beef from a single animal. Here's the category split:

That's the 30,000-foot view. Now let's get into the actual cuts.

Dry-Aged Steaks in a Half Share

This is the part most people flip to first, so let's start here. You get 50–60 pounds of dry-aged steaks in a Half Share. All of them are dry-aged in the cooler at Harbs Processing in Stamford, NY. None of them are wet-aged.

Quick primer on that, because it matters: dry-aging is when the carcass hangs uncovered in a temperature- and humidity-controlled cooler for two to three weeks. Moisture evaporates. Enzymes break down the muscle. Flavor concentrates. It costs more, it yields less, and it tastes dramatically better. Wet-aging (which is what most grocery store beef is) is just vacuum-sealed meat sitting in its own juices in a box. Cheaper, faster, no flavor development. We don't do it. (For the full story on what wet-aging actually does to your beef, see Why Grocery Store Beef Is Watery.)

Here's the typical steak piece count in a Half Share:

A quick note on each:

• Ribeye. The one everyone wants. Marbled, rich, cooks in a cast iron in four minutes a side. Eight of them.
• T-Bone / Porterhouse. Strip on one side of the bone, tenderloin on the other. Grill hot and fast. Six to eight.
• Chuck Steak. Sometimes called a chuck eye. Underrated. Handles a reverse sear or a marinade beautifully. Four to six.
• London Broil. Lean, dense, needs a marinade and a hot grill. Slice thin against the grain. Four to six.
• Sirloin Tip. Versatile weeknight steak. Grill it, pan-sear it, or cube it for kabobs. Four to six.
• Skirt, Flank, Coulette, Flat Iron, Tri-Tip. One of each. These are the specialty cuts. Skirt and flank love a quick sear and a chimichurri or sliced up for tacos. Tri-tip wants a slow roast. Flat iron is the best steak most people have never heard of.

That's your full half beef cut list on the steak side. Eight ribeyes, six to eight T-bones, a pile of value cuts, and five specialty pieces. If you're wondering half a cow how many steaks, the honest answer is: somewhere between 30 and 40, depending on how the animal breaks down.

Savory Cuts: Roasts, Brisket, Stew, Short Ribs, Shanks

This is the 50–60 pounds of low-and-slow cuts. Sunday-afternoon cuts. The stuff a slow cooker was invented for.

Quick rundown:

• Brisket. You get a whole brisket, cut in half for freezer sanity. Two pieces total. Smoke one, braise the other. Or do both the same weekend and invite the neighbors.
• Roasts. Three to four of them across chuck, shoulder, and eye round. Chuck is the pot roast. Shoulder is the forgiving one. Eye round is lean and loves a slow roast followed by cold sandwiches all week.
• Stew Beef. Eight to twelve packages. A winter's worth of chili, beef stew, and curry.
• Short Ribs. Six to eight. Braise them in red wine for three hours and tell me you've had a better meal this year.
• Shanks. Six to eight. Osso buco. Bone marrow. The cut that made Italian grandmothers famous.

Ground Beef: 70 to 80 Pounds of It

This is the workhorse. Seventy to eighty pounds of 85/15 grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef, packed in one-pound vacuum-sealed packages.

Why so much? Because once you take out the steaks and roasts and brisket, a lot of what's left (trim, flat cuts, odds and ends) gets ground. That's how every steer works. More ground than anything else.

And it's the cut you'll reach for the most. Burgers, tacos, bolognese, meatballs, a quick skillet on a Wednesday when you haven't thought about dinner yet. Seventy-five pounds of ground at eight ounces per person works out to roughly 150 servings. A family of four eating ground beef twice a week burns through it in about nine months.

One more thing: if you don't want the bones, organs, and fat (more on those in a minute), you can swap them for extra ground beef or for our Primal Blend. Primal Blend is our ground beef with 10% liver and 5% heart mixed in. Same taste as regular ground beef to most people, but with the organ nutrition built in. It's the easiest way I know to get organ meat into kids without a family meeting about it.

Bones, Organs, and Fat: What to Do With Them (Or Swap Them Out)

You get 15–20 pounds of bones, organs, and fat in a Half Share. Some people love it. Some people don't.

If you love it: bones make bone broth, marrow bones roast in a 450 oven for 20 minutes and you spread the marrow on toast, tallow renders from the fat and becomes the best cooking fat on earth, and liver and heart are the most nutrient-dense foods in the animal kingdom.

If you don't: that's fine. This is the one piece of the Half Share you can customize. Swap the bones, organs, and fat for extra 85/15 ground beef, or for Primal Blend. That's it. That's the only customization.

How Many Meals Is a Half Cow?

Two hundred pounds of beef sounds like a lot until you start cooking it. Here's rough meal math for a family of four, assuming eight ounces per person per meal:

A family of four eating beef three to four nights a week makes a Half Share last roughly 10 to 12 months. A couple eating beef most nights gets more like 18 months. Heavier eaters, less. It's enough beef that you stop thinking about beef, which is exactly the point.

Not sure a Half Share is the right size for your household? Take the 60-second beef share quiz and we'll point you to the share that fits.

Do You Get to Choose Your Cuts?

No. And I want to explain why, because this is where a lot of farms get fuzzy and I'd rather just be straight with you.

Our cuts are standard across every Half Share we ship. You don't pick steak thickness. You don't pick roast size. You don't pick bone-in vs. boneless. You don't submit a cut sheet. The only customization is swapping the bones, organs, and fat for extra ground beef or Primal Blend.

Three reasons we do it this way:

• It keeps processing efficient. Harbs Processing runs consistent batches of beef for us each week. If every share had a custom cut sheet, throughput would crater and our processing cost would jump. That cost ends up in the price, so flat cuts means flat prices.
• It keeps pricing simple. One Half Share, one price: $3,570. No change orders. No surprise line items at fulfillment.
• It keeps quality consistent. Every animal is cut the same way by the same butcher. You get what the last customer got and what the next customer will get.

If you need a custom cut sheet, a local farm that processes one animal at a time for one customer is probably a better fit. What we're built for is: you want a freezer full of excellent dry-aged beef, shipped to your door, at a flat per-pound price, without a phone call about chuck roast thickness.

How It's Packaged and Delivered

Every cut is vacuum-sealed, labeled with the cut name, and frozen solid before it leaves the butcher. Packaging is done at Harbs Processing in Stamford, NY.

Shipping: we pack your share in an insulated box with dry ice and ship UPS Ground Monday through Wednesday. Most of the Northeast is a 1–2 day transit. Your beef arrives frozen, goes straight into the freezer, and you don't think about it again until Tuesday's dinner.

And about that freezer: your Half Share comes with a free 7 cubic foot chest freezer, delivered alongside your order. It's the perfect amount of room to hold the half share. No "go buy a freezer" homework. We ship it just before the beef.

What a Half Cow Actually Costs Per Pound

A Half Share is $3,570 for ~200 pounds of take-home beef. That's $17.85 per pound, flat, across every cut in the box.

Which means the ribeyes cost $17.85 a pound. The ground beef costs $17.85 a pound. The brisket costs $17.85 a pound. You're not paying grocery-store prices where ribeyes are $35 and ground is $12. You're paying a blended rate on the whole animal.

For the full all-in math (including the free freezer value, shipping, and how it stacks up against a Whole Share), head to How Much Does a Half Cow Cost? (All-In Price Breakdown).

FAQ: Quick Answers

What cuts do you get in a half cow?
At Dirty Dog Farm, a Half Share is ~200 lbs of dry-aged beef: 70–80 lbs of 85/15 ground beef, 50–60 lbs of steaks (including 8 ribeyes and 6–8 T-bones/porterhouses), 50–60 lbs of savory cuts (2 briskets, 3–4 roasts, 8–12 stew packages, 6–8 short ribs, 6–8 shanks), and 15–20 lbs of bones, organs, and fat (swappable for extra ground beef or Primal Blend).

How many steaks are in a half cow?
Roughly 30 to 40 individual steaks, depending on how the animal breaks down. That includes 8 ribeyes, 8 T-bones or porterhouses, 12–18 value cuts (chuck, London broil, sirloin tip), and 5 specialty cuts (skirt, flank, coulette, flat iron, tri-tip).

Can I customize the cuts?
No. Our cuts are standard across every Half Share. The only customization is swapping the bones, organs, and fat for extra ground beef or Primal Blend. That keeps processing efficient and pricing flat: one Half Share, one price, no change orders.

How long does a half cow last?
For a family of four eating beef 3–4 nights a week, about 10–12 months. For a couple, closer to 18. It's enough beef that you stop thinking about beef.

Ready to Reserve?

If you've read this far, you know what's in the box and you know what it costs per pound. The next step is easy: reserve a Half Share with a deposit, and we'll ship it (and the free chest freezer) to your door.

Your Farmer,
Josh