What You Actually Get in a Half Beef Share
A half share from this farm is about 175 pounds of packaged beef across 26 cuts. The weight is the easy part. The mix is what people are unprepared for.
People ask how much beef is in a half cow and get an answer from an article written about somebody else's cattle. Here are our own numbers, from our own shares.
The three sizes, as we pack them
- 1/8 share. 40 to 42 lbs of packaged beef across 19 cuts. This is the one that fits in a freezer drawer.
- Quarter share. About 85 lbs across 23 cuts. A full shelf, or a small chest freezer.
- Half share. About 175 lbs across 26 cuts. This needs a chest freezer of its own.
Note what happens to the cut count as the share gets smaller. It does not halve. A half gets 26 cuts and an eighth still gets 19, because the point of a share is range, and we do not strip the variety out of the smaller boxes.
The mix is the part to plan for
A half share is not 175 pounds of steak. It is a whole side of an animal, which means steaks, roasts, ground beef, and the slower cuts in roughly the proportion the animal carries them. Ground beef is the largest single share of it by weight. Steaks are the smallest.
That proportion is fixed by anatomy, not by preference, and it is the single thing that surprises first-time share buyers. If your household eats steak four nights a week and nothing else, a share is the wrong purchase and a box is the right one.
Why we need to know you are coming
“Because it's tough for smaller farmers to, you know, have something available, 200 pounds ready to go. And we don't know whether you're coming or not. Because if you're not coming, then we still have to find a home for it. And if you are, we have to have it ready.”
Gray Shipley
That is also why shares are reserved rather than simply added to a basket. We are matching a real animal to a real customer, and the timing has to work at both ends.
“And it takes three years to make a steak.”
Gray Shipley
Which is the real reason a share is reserved rather than stocked. The animal in your share was born before you ordered it.
“There's a saying that farming isn't rocket science. It's way more complicated than that.”
Gray Shipley
Freezer space, honestly
As a rough planning figure, packaged beef runs about 35 to 40 pounds per cubic foot of freezer, so a half share wants roughly five cubic feet clear. Measure before you order. A share that does not fit is a problem you solve at midnight.
Pickup only. The full side, with the range that comes with it.
View ProductShips frozen. The one to start with if you have never bought a share.
View ProductFor how long it keeps once it is in there, see how long beef lasts in the freezer. For the money, see what a beef share costs.
- Freezing and Food Safety, USDA FSIS
- Cold Food Storage Chart, FoodSafety.gov
Food-safety temperatures and storage times on this page are cited to the agencies above rather than to us.
Written at Shipley Farms in Vilas, North Carolina: a family cattle farm raising and dry-aging beef in the Appalachian Mountains, now in its fifth generation. No shortcuts since 1872.
Every quote on this page is Gray Shipley talking, the man who runs this farm. We sat down with him, turned on a recorder, and kept his own words. Hesitations are trimmed so they read on the page. Nothing else is added or reworded, except where Gray revised his own words in review.
Nobody knows this beef better than we do. On food safety we leave it to USDA FSIS and FoodSafety.gov, and we have linked their pages above. Reviewed 3 October 2026.
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