Buying a Quarter Cow in Austin: Price, Pounds, and How It Works
A plain-English breakdown of what a quarter beef actually is, what ours costs, how much meat lands in your freezer, and how it gets to your door in Austin.
A quarter share from Long Road Ranch costs $1,750 and yields about 90–110 lbs of finished 100% grass-fed Wagyu beef — about $17.50 per pound, with USDA-inspected processing, dry-aging and vacuum-sealing included. It's two of the eight units of one named steer raised in Georgetown, Texas, cut to your spec.
Quick facts
- Price
- $1,750 flat, one-time
- Pounds
- 90–110 lbs
- Price per pound
- About $17.50/lb of finished beef
- Freezer space
- ~3–4 cu ft (small chest freezer)
- What's included
- Steaks, ground beef, roasts, stew and fajita meat, brisket or short ribs, soup bones and pure Wagyu tallow.
- Processing
- USDA-inspected harvest, dry-aging, cutting, vacuum-sealing and freezing — included in the flat price.
- Service area
- We hand-deliver in Greater Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth, and ranch pickup in Georgetown is always available. We do not ship beef.
- Pickup
- Free at the ranch in Georgetown, TX.
- Timing
- Each steer lists its harvest date. Beef is dry-aged, cut and frozen, then delivered or picked up two to three weeks after harvest week.
- How to buy
- Claim a share on the Beef Shares page — a one-time purchase, no subscription.
- 100% Wagyu Beef
- Central Texas Ranch
- USDA Inspected
- No Hormones or Antibiotics
- One-Time Purchase · No Subscription
What a quarter beef actually is
A quarter cow is exactly what it sounds like: a fourth of one animal. We divide every steer into eight units, so a quarter is two of those eight units — a real, identifiable steer with a name and a number, not a pallet of mixed beef assembled somewhere in the Midwest.
Most people picture a quarter as "a leg." It isn't. A proper quarter share is cut across the whole animal, so you get the same proportion of steaks, ground, roasts and brisket that the full steer yields. You're not getting the front half while somebody else eats the ribeyes.
The other thing worth knowing: our cattle are 100% grass-fed and grass-finished Wagyu, raised about 30 minutes north of Austin in Georgetown. Same herd, same pasture, start to finish. You can drive out and look at them.
What our quarter costs — and why the math is simpler
one-time, all in
- ~90–110 lbs of finished, packaged beef
- About $17.50 per pound of take-home meat
- Harvest, dry-aging, cut & wrap included
- Vacuum-sealed and frozen, no extra fees
- Custom cut sheet with our butcher
*before the second invoice
A quarter at 180 lbs hanging weight looks like $1,170 at first glance. Then the processor bills you separately: a kill fee, a per-pound cut-and-wrap charge, extra for vacuum sealing, sometimes extra for patties or cured cuts. And hanging weight isn't what you take home — after cutting and trimming you typically keep 60–70% of it.
Run that all the way out and the real number usually lands close to ours — you just don't find out until pickup day. We'd rather quote one price and be done.
For a full breakdown of where every dollar goes, see why our shares cost what they cost.
What's actually in a quarter
Here's a typical quarter, packed and labeled. Your cut sheet decides the final mix — trade roasts for more ground, ask for thicker steaks, keep the brisket whole for the smoker.
Typical yield — your custom cut sheet decides the final mix.
How much freezer do you need?
Plan on ~3–4 cu ft (small chest freezer). Vacuum-sealed beef keeps 12+ months at 0°F without freezer burn, so there's no rush to eat it — most families take six to nine months to work through a quarter.
Not sure a quarter is your size? An eighth (~45–55 lbs) fits a standard fridge-freezer, and a half cow needs more room again. All four sizes are on the available steers page.
How delivery works in the Austin metro
We drive it ourselves. Once your quarter is cut, sealed and frozen, we load it into insulated coolers at the ranch and hand it to you at your door — downtown, East Austin, South Congress, Westlake, Circle C, Mueller, or anywhere else in the metro. No third-party courier, no warehouse leg, nothing thawed and refrozen.
Delivery is a small flat fee shown at checkout, and it's waived on your order if you use a creator code. Pickup at the ranch in Georgetown is free, and it's a pretty drive. Full ZIP coverage is listed on our Austin beef delivery page.
Quarter cow questions, answered
Claim your quarter of the next steer.
$1,750, one time, processing included. Shares are limited to eight units per animal, and they go.
See Available Steers