Fill your Freezer

Yellowstone River Ranch, LLC is a small ranching business that specializes in raising and selling high-quality cattle.

Yellowstone River Ranch, LLC is located in the southcentral Montana, just outside of Livingston.

We sell all-natural, premium-quality, aged, grain-finished beef. Animals in our care receive no antibiotics, hormones or steroids. This is not organic beef and it is not grass-fed beef. This is the same beef we have been raising for our own family since 2017.

In 2024 we are using the Producer Partnership from Livingston, Montana. The Producer Partnership is a non-profit USDA inspected processing facility that opened in Park County in 2020. They operate with the mission to end hunger in Montana. As neighboring ranchers, we at Yellowstone River Ranch wanted to support this local facility and help with their mission. We have been working with them for over a year to facilitate a relationship that would benefit both of us and provide a local processing service to our community. If you have purchased from us before, you have heard of the struggles to find a good-reliable processor. We feel that Producer Partners is that missing link, they have a strong goal, provide local Park County jobs and are giving back to our community in more ways than we can count. If you would like to learn more about them, or to learn how you can help them accomplish their goals to feed Montana visit their website at https://www.producerpartnership.com/

Our 2024 beef price is $2.50 per pound live weight and processed beef prices are $2700 for a whole beef and $1350 for a half beef. This is our 6thyear processing and selling finished beef to the public and we finally have our breeding and feeding down to a science. We are finishing our beef out at about 800lbs on the hoof, which will yield about 320 pounds of packaged meat in the freezer. That works out to about $8.31 per pound for all cuts, but not all cuts are equal. Here is how we break it down, Burger will account for about 50% of your take home meat and will average about $4.15 per pound. Premium cuts will account for about 20% of your take home meat, averaging about $11.63 per pound. Budget cuts will account for about 30% of your take home meat averaging about $9.14 per pound. The total average for all cuts of meat would be about $8.31 per pound. Where the average price per pound at the grocery store in 2024 is about $11.28 per pound. So you are saving nearly $3.00 per pound by bulk, and buying locally grown beef that you know was raised with care. 

As we mentioned before, there are three types of cuts: Premium, Budget and Burger. The premium cuts includes T-bones steaks, new york steaks, filet mignons, rib-eye steaks, and sirloin steaks.  The budget cuts include cuts like chuck steaks, short ribs, brisket, or cubed steak. The exact package totals and weights will vary depending on your individual cut sheets, but on average you will get about 20% Premium cuts, 30% budget cuts and 50% burger. If your family doesn’t eat many roasts, you might get more steaks and more burger. If you would like to get any organ meats such as heart, liver or tongue, just make sure to put those down on your cut sheet. 

Standard-cut processing results in an approximately 32% yield loss. So, if you have the beef “standard-cut”, you would expect to take home approximately 300-320 pounds of packaged meat from a whole beef. Half beef is approximately 155-160 pounds of packaged meat. If you have a lot of your steaks and/or roasts made into ground beef, you will have less packaged meat than with the “standard-cut”. Also, if you have a lot of your beef de-boned, you will have less packaged meat than average.

For each 25 pounds of packaged beef, you will need about 1 cubic foot of freezer space. So, for a whole beef, you’ll need about 12 cubic feet and half of a beef, you’ll need about 6 cubic feet of freezer space. 

The steers we sell each year are hand selected from our Registered American Hereford cattle herd, The traditional size is also commonly referred to as “miniature” cattle, however they are not dwarfs as commonly mistaken. The cattle we raise are still considered “miniatures” however they are the traditional sized cattle that were raised in the 1800s. As Americans do, they have bred these cattle to get bigger and bigger over the years, leading to health and genetic problems. We pride ourselves in having our traditional herd with genetics unaltered by “standardized” selective breeding practices. Our cattle herd is considered heritage bred and can be traced back to movements west in the late 1800s. Traditional Herefords at full grown are about 32-36 inches tall and the steers are about 750-900 pounds when finished and ready for processing, and will be under 2 years of age when they are processed, to ensure the best quality finished product.  

We pay a professional feeding company to finish our beef. Currently we are using Midland Bull Test Feedlot in Columbus Montana. They use a proprietary feed ration that includes corn silage (which they grow themselves), flaked corn and an organic Omega-3 protein supplement that is proven to enhance the Omega-3 content in the beef. 

Each year we sell a limited supply of beef that is ready in the processing plants in late September/ October of each year. We take orders on a first-come, first-served basis, and often have a waiting list each year. 

On the Processing Day, we will have each steer weighed on a certified scale at Midland Bull Test Feedlot. The beef will then be transported by YRR and dropped off at the processor. We  will convey to the processor which beef is for which buyer and cut instructions will be given to the Processor. After you receive notification that your beef is at the Processor, you may be contacted by the processor to confirm your “cutting instructions”.  

The beef hangs for ten days to 2 weeks, and then the Processor cuts and wraps it. Producer Partners will package all of the meat in vacuum sealed packaging and they will contact YRR when the meat is ready to be picked up. Cheyenne or Wyatt will contact you to arrange a delivery location and time.  It is also very important that you are able to meet at the delivery time and place and make your final payment. YRR will not be storing meat, unless arrangements are made ahead of time. (We have to have a Meat Depo License from the State for this.)