Top 25 Reasons to Be a Cowboy | #17: Free Beef

Work for nearly any ranch and one of the benefits will undoubtedly be free beef. If there’s one thing a ranch can usually spare, it’s home-raised, nutritious protein.

There are few other professions wherein your employer basically provides you a perpetually full freezer of food. And, if you’re a self-employed rancher, what better way to repurpose otherwise unmarketable cattle than converting them to personal beef. Most of the beef ranchers eat is a calf that sustained an accidental injury and rather than euthanize him, the rancher raises him for his personal use. Waste not, want not, right?

Often, the freezer beef becomes a mascot of the headquarters. I remember as a boy a bottle calf some ranchers raised and named, Bob—which stood for Bit of Beef. Until the day he fulfilled his ultimate purpose he had the run of the ranch headquarters. He was gentle enough to go in every building and made a general nuisance of himself.

We fed out a pair of Piedmontese yearling steers for ourselves that my daughter named Pete and Monty. They weren’t nearly as gentle as Bob, but Monty will live in our memories forever for the time our cur dog tried to bay him up and he flung the dog 10 feet vertically in the air. All involved walked away with minor wounds to lick, but the dog learned not to mess with a 1200-lb. steer…I think.

There’s something inherently comforting about a stored-up food. Even before the COVID-19 crisis, many of my ranching friends made a nice side hustle raising custom beef to sell in sides and quarters for their town friends. Some even expand that model to farmers markets and beef delivery. But in the heat of the pandemic, the demand from individuals for beef was skyrocketing. Even more indicative of what it means to have food stores, freezers went on backorder across the nation. In one instance, I managed to find a beef ready for butcher somewhat out of season, but the buyer couldn’t find a freezer. What’s more, the local processors are 6-8 months out.

All this to say, it’s no small perk for cowboys to enjoy unlimited access to beef for their personal use from their employer. And beef is just one more reason to be thankful you’re not a chicken or hog farmer!