How big of a freezer do I need...

Now that is a big freezer. With a very big price tag.

However, if you're storing almost $5000 worth of meat.... (of course that would be an approximate retail value)

Wow, everyone! Thanks for all of the replies!

But now I feel a bit silly. I was honestly thinking what would I need for a year. I keep seeing sales for like half a cow or half a hog and the deals on 100 chicks seems so nice, well to be telling the truth this will only be for myself and my son, who is going to be 9 whole months on the 19th. I guess I may have overshot the number of animals. *sheepish grin*

I have never canned and never even thought of canning meat before but I might try. So 1/2 a hog for a year is too much? I'm new to being on my own with just a little one and I. The key phrase at dinner was the more the merrier so I guess I need to figure out just how much we'll be eating! Right now it's mostly processed things like canned soups and taco bell but coming here really makes me want to buy meat locally. That and I'd rather be able to drive by a farm and say to my son, "That right there is Mr. Smith's farm. That's where we got our bacon from." Etc.

SO I guess a different question would be, how much meat would a single mother and an infant need without having to go to the grocers for it...

And THEN how big of a freezer do I need.

(I think I'll have to go to the food board and figure out the whole canning thing.)

Once again thank you ALL for the replies. I get on at night so I apologize for the delay. I have to wait till the baby's asleep.

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"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

William Congreve (January 24, 1670 – January 19, 1729) the English playwright and poet.

Ha! I'd say you may have over shot a bit...

Actually, it's pretty easy to estimate your meat needs. How much meat do you eat in a week, or a month? Do you have meat with ever meal, or just dinner? It all depends on what you eat. Say you use a pound or two of hamburger, and a chicken a week. So, plan on 4 or 5 chickens a month, and 5 pounds of hamberger. Throw in a steak or two, and how ever much bacon, sausage and /or ham. Once you know what you plan eat in a month, multiply by twelve.

For one person, I'll bet it's a good deal less than half a cow which is several hundred pounds of meat!

Figure out how much you'll need for a year, then visit your local custom slaughterhouse or butchershop. They can sell you a "package" at a good price and I've found the quality is much better than what the grocers carry, although it isn't home grown. Unless of course you live in a state where custom meat can be sold by the pound.
Also, get to know your local farmers. Nothing like a plate of cookies to get a farmer to butcher some chickens for you at a good price.

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If angels existed, they'd probably be considered big game. (Don Swain)

Home schooling.........not just for scary religious people anymore. Buffy

For me, DH, and three kids 7 and under, we need a small pig, about 75 chickens, and under 1/2 a cow for the year. Plus maybe two turkeys for holidays. Here's how I loosely figure it out: a whole chicken per week plus chickens cut in parts and wrapped, pork once a week plus ground pork for other meals like meatballs and spaghetti sauce, beef twice a week, and leftovers or do-overs the rest of the time.

The problem with buying whole animals or large parts of them is that it reduces the convenience factor, since at some point, all you have left are pork roasts and chicken wings. This could be a problem for you with only one adult who's used to take-out. So think about investing in a few items that will keep food feeling convenient while honoring your (noble!) desire for local food for your family: a meat grinder to turn large cuts into ground, a crockpot to handle all the stew meat you'll get, a FoodSaver or comparable product to repackage large cuts, etc. Another thing you can do is purchase some freezer-to-oven dishware and make up some meals--mostly casseroles--that you can literally throw into the oven frozen solid. (Some of this advice is Mom advice...can you tell?!)

Lastly, evaluate whether this is the best way for you to go. Look at your eating habits for a few weeks. Then, you can try to figure out if it's cheaper to run a freezer for a while or pay an extra 50 cents a pound to buy to buy cuts a la carte for a while until you know what your deal is. Buying a new freezer is expensive, and so is running an old one, so keep that in mind; our two old 26 cu.ft. freezers easily cost us $40 a month to run, and that's when they're full. Canning meat is an excellent idea--I do it and it's great--but it's not for a newbie canner, and you should find someone who knows how to do it properly.

Best of luck. I have a lot of respect for a new mom who's traveling down your path. Your child will benefit from your actions...

Shifting gears here LOL....
A lot of good points have been made since your 'disclosure', none probably more relevant than to know what your cooking/eating habits are; but also what your nutritional objectives are. How motivated are you to improve the QUALITY of the food you consume - is having beef that is raised hormone- and antibiotic-free, poultry without antibiotics and raised under humane conditions, pork raised on pasture, etc. important to you? Or are you trying to save some money?

Unless you raise them yourself, you won't probably save much money by buying bulk and storing it. But factor in the above, and it can easily be worth the initial investment in quality meat.

A half pig will provide about 60-70 lbs of finished wrapped meat depending on slaughter weight (240-250# is typical) and how you have it butchered. My customers whose family is 2 adults will consume a half in a year.

Chickens - two 5 lb chickens per week would be a LOT for you. I'll eat one per week but it accounts for 3-4 meals. Roast or smoke one say on Sunday, then sliced chicken sandwich, Tomato stuffed with chicken salad, boil the carcass for chicken soup. I can't really imagine that you and a one year old would eat appreciably more than I do by myself.

Duck, geese, turkey - find a local supplier that raises them to your standard and buy on demand.

Christiaan had good advice about beef. You probably won't get as good a price as if you buy a half, but a half cow would probably last you three years. Most states allow on-farm processing - outside of that the meat must be processed at a USDA fully inspected facility; or some states allow processing at a state fully inspected facility in order to sell wrapped cuts. Find a local producer and if they don't sell wrapped cuts ask them where they get their animals processed, then buy from the processor - many sell individual cuts or custom packages that can save you some money.

Those were some very good answers and you can tell that the was a lot of thought behind them.
The eating habit question IS the biggest factor.

I can personally attest to the theory, "If you have it, you will fill it".

Having downsized, kids gone, we still have two large freezers, packed.
Old habits are hard to break, and there is the "warm and fuzzy feeling", knowing that you have all that food "put by", BUT.........

Our eating habits have changed, less red meat, (for all the "health" reasons), our portions seem to have been getting smaller, as we get older, as well as simply, just not wanting to cook big meals that much.

So, that fact is that we are storing large amounts of food that will probably get tossed, as it will not get used in a timely fashion.
To me this is wasteful, both in food and energy used to keep it.
We are trying, but like I said, old habits are hard to break.

Example: buying bread stuffs in bulk and freezing it. For a long time I wasn't used to eating fresh bread, just thawed out stuff.

I think we can afford to just buy what we need, fresh or bake our own, now that we aren't feeding teenagers and friends, vast amounts of food as we did for a lot of years.

We raised two hogs last year, and they were butchered in November 2006. We still have some in the freezer--sausage that needs to be ground and seasoned, just one smallish slab of belly to be soaked and smoked, a few big roasts and a ham. We have 1 adult, 1 teen male, 1 teen vegetarian and one big eating elementary school girl!

Today I went and got the one-half young steer we bought earlier this year. LOTS of ground beef by choice--we grill well into December here in middle TN--and all sorts of interesting steaks and small roasts, oxtail, liver, tongue, etc. This and the remaining hog meat filled the med. sized chest freezer we have. It overflowed a bit into the kitchen freezer above the fridge as well.

We eat what we have. I find myself buying things like ice cream and cakes, the things I don't have time to make. But we serve lots of veggies, lightly cooked or sauteed from the CSA, and salad-usually grow own greens when it's cooler and tomatoes and cukes when warmer.

The last year has really been one of studying what we eat, how we cook and how to make things easier--not necessarily with less money. Now, we do take satisfaction in making our own bacon and growing our own veggies in a minimal kind of way. I looked at what we really like and how I could accomlish that-we love eggs and so we have chickens. We like milk and what we can make with it, so I have a two dairy goats in milk.

One thing I have learned is that when the kids are not here, I eat very very little. Tomatoes, maybe some greens and cornbread, a steak on the grill or some sauteed chicken and herbs with rice. Add in a 9 month old, and that's nothing. Add in my 3, and you've got to cook-and I have a 19 year old with us this summer and he eats like there is no tomorrow!

Anyway, good luck!

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Vanessa
Lebanon, TN

If you figure one chicken per week, then sort out your beef and pork requirements, try to fill your freezer to last you six months to one year. You can buy a half of a half beef, which will give you all the cuts of beef, just 25% of a whole steer. You may be able to get half a pig, which should last you better than year. As for the chickens, if you can raise them yourself, do it in batches of a dozen or 15 Rhode Island Red, two or three months apart. We have a small upright, it will hold a half steer. This is way more than you need, especially when you consider pork, chicken, and the occassional vegetarian meal.