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Any butchers on here. I called the butcher today to get on his list for a couple of steers. He is 2 years out! Crazy!

Something wrong there, at least here it is only about a45 day waiting period for a butcher with a very good rep.

Butchers in W WA were booked up months out back before the covtard struck. Id call in March or early April and would be lucky to get a date before Thanksgiving. Usually something opened up before.

It doubled to a year plus after 2020.

Supply and demand.

Year plus for most people around my area

It’s a year wait around here for any new customers, old customers 1-2 months longer than normal

We have a date booked every year for our hogs to be killed and scalded. Confirm it a year out.

Beef same way, but the kill and butcher the beer.

The two local shops aren’t taking any new customers.

2 local shops have disappeared. 1 retired, the other burned down & isnt rebuilding. That put a big hurt on home grown meat

Same here

Shortage of custom kill packers.

The one I took a beef to awhile back was about a 4 month wait, which is pretty long compared to what it used to be.

It’s down to about 45 days average now, was 1-1/2 years during Covid , you can always do what I did , buy the processors beef and you cut right in line, if you buy there’s, no waiting list.

As I've said, a bad deal, not salvaging good beef, it's not for sale.

Wow! I smell opportunity.

Where in Texas.

Westphalia has a custom shop. We took a hog in with a two week waiting period.

I also buy the show hogs the processors get from kids that are not good enough to win in big shows, but are fattened up for a small price and he works those into line , about two weeks to get after he purchases.

Price of fats might have slowed some buyers down a bit. Waiting time in our area has shortened up some.

Neighbor heads the meat dept at local IGA. He talked his boss into springing for facilities to process beef and hogs in addition to their normal retail business. He is staying busy. I think he wished he would have built his hanging cooler 2x the size... He normally went in around 6:30am. He is now going in at 4:30am to get his retail work done to allow more time for processing when the full crew arrives.

Now, the shortage in our area is finding someone to kill, skin and quarter on the farm before you take them to the cooler to age. Only two guys doing it, side hustle. Generally only on Saturday mornings...

Welcome to the 'fire!

Even the shops that do a mediocre job are very busy. Getting an elk cut and wrapped is almost impossible.

Someone with some real, old country style, skills and knowledge about making hams, speck, wursts and other high end smoked goods would make out like a bandit. All the California immigrants would lose their marbles…..

All that I have checked with are about 2 years out. I haven’t checked Westphalia because it’s not as close. I’ll look into them because they’re about an hour away. The butcher I like using is R&R in Aquilla