We are now set up with home delivery for just about everything except meat, so I have been thinking about starting a meat buying club with Thundering Hooves in the next few weeks or so. They are located in Walla Walla, WA and deliver to Portland (Grand Central Bakery in NE is their customer) every other Thursday, and they are willing to stop by my house first on their way there.

I have been looking into various sources of farm direct meat (mainly for Dan and Zoe since I don’t eat it), and have gotten really confused by hanging weight, butcher fees, processing fees, cut and wrap, and all these other expenses. What I like about Thundering Hooves is that they sell the meat by actual weight, not hanging weight, so you get what you pay for. They also have the ability to give you the exact cuts that you want if you can’t/don’t want to get a quarter, half or whole animal. And if you do want an entire animal, they can do that too. To me, their prices seem quite good ($5.09/lb for actual weight for an entire cow, for example), which if you figure a 40% loss from hanging weight works out to right over $3/lb hanging weight.

All their ruminants (cow, lamb and goat) are 100% grass fed. Their hogs do get some grain in their diet, but they explained to me that hogs are omnivores like humans and need a mix of carbs to thrive. I do not pretend to know enough about hog diet to be able to say if this is accurate or not, but I have heard from several sources that hogs will eat anything.

Their pastures are certified organic, and by practice all the farmers that they get meat from are also organic, but some have not paid for the certification so they cannot legally call themselves Organic.

Their minimum order is right around $1,000. They said the average person spends $80 per order, so I would need 12 people to commit to this to get set up. Let me know if you are interested!