Buy Beef Direct: Beef Shares
A beef share is a portion of one animal, bought from the producer before it is processed and cut to your order. It is how most families buy beef direct, and it comes in sizes from an eighth to a whole.
When you buy a beef share, you are buying part of a specific animal: usually an eighth, a quarter, a half or the whole thing. The producer raises it, takes it to a processor on a harvest date, and you get your portion back cut, wrapped and frozen. A share is priced on hanging weight, the weight of the carcass after harvest and before cutting, so the final price depends on how big that animal was.
Shares are also how many small farms are able to sell beef at all. Under the federal custom exemption, an animal owned by its buyers before harvest can be processed at a custom exempt plant for the owners' own use, which is why a share is often sold as a portion of the live animal and why the packages may be stamped not for sale. Other producers use a USDA inspected plant, which lets them sell a share and individual cuts alike. Both are legitimate; it is worth knowing which one you are buying.
A grass fed beef share, a pasture raised share and a grain finished share are the same arrangement with different cattle behind them. The share structure stays the same: you commit to a portion, pay on hanging weight, choose your cuts as far as the share size allows, and collect a freezer's worth of beef from a producer you know.
An eighth or a quarter suits a small household or a first purchase. A half or whole suits a big family, a big freezer, or a group splitting one animal.
The producer takes a deposit and puts your name on an animal and a harvest date. Shares on a popular date can sell out months ahead.
A half or whole gets your own cut sheet. Smaller shares often come as a standard mix of cuts, or are agreed between the buyers sharing a side.
After harvest the carcass is weighed and you pay your portion of the hanging weight at the agreed rate, plus processing where it is separate.
After aging, cutting and freezing, you collect from the ranch or the processor, or the producer delivers.
A good producer is glad to answer every one of these. Ask before you put down a deposit, and compare producers on the same answers.
Each of these producers lists shares on its own site, whether it calls them shares, eighths, quarters or halves. Reserve with the producer directly.
Eloy, Arizona
Mark and Annette Smith are fourth generation Eloy area farmers who went back to their ranching roots in 2021 to raise American Wagyu. The herd eats alfalfa, corn, barley, bermuda, triticale and oats grown on the family's own ground.
From the ranch's own listing: Quarter, half and whole beef
Hampton, Georgia
Wayne, Charmaine and Jekhi Swanson run a 32 acre farm south of Atlanta raising Georgia Pineywoods cattle, hair sheep and heritage hogs on pasture and in the woods, with no commercial feed, steroids or hormones.
From the ranch's own listing: Eighth, quarter and half beef shares
Meyersville, Texas
Tanner and Catherine left careers in oil and gas and pharmaceutical sales to restore a 1915 farmhouse on 57 acres and raise beef, chicken and heritage hogs on pasture. Beef is dry aged and cut by the farm's own butchers.
From the ranch's own listing: Half and whole animal reservations
Bullard, Texas
The Haughee family farms regeneratively near Bullard, Texas, raising 100 percent grass finished beef alongside pastured chicken and pork. Fields are never sprayed and the animals never receive hormones or pharmaceuticals.
From the ranch's own listing: 100 percent grass finished beef shares
Slaton, Texas
The ranch has been in the Forrest family for over 100 years and is raising its sixth generation. Amber and Casey Davis and their daughters run cattle on ranch pasture, finished on grass and grain, with no hormones or antibiotics.
From the ranch's own listing: Eighth, quarter, half and whole beef
Marble Falls, Texas
Beef from the original Samuel Ely Holland Ranch in Burnet County, established by the family's great great grandfather in 1848. Cattle are pasture raised and grass fed, and the beef is dry aged 14 to 18 days.
From the ranch's own listing: Whole, half, quarter and eighth beef
Wells, Nevada
A family ranch in Clover Valley, in the foothills of the East Humboldt range, started in 1947 and now in its fifth generation. Jordan and Kari Lyn Brough sell the ranch's Wagyu and Angus beef direct, from a single cut to a whole beef.
From the ranch's own listing: Custom quarter, half and full beef
Washoe Valley, Nevada
A family that has been ranching and farming in Nevada for more than 50 years, running a co-op of Nevada ranches and farms. The beef is grass fed, grass finished and dry aged, and customers pre-order and collect at one of five posted locations.
From the ranch's own listing: Beef shares, processed in the buyer's name
Wheatland, Wyoming
The Goertz family has raised cattle and wheat on the same southeast Wyoming ground since 1910, and started selling beef direct in 2004. The cattle graze prairie grass and cover crops, finish on grain raised on the family's own farm, and are dry aged 21 days.
From the ranch's own listing: Whole, half, quarter and eighth beef
Yoder, Colorado
Freedom Acres Ranch is a Marine Corps veteran family's ranch in Yoder, Colorado, founded in 2020 to bring healthy, farm fresh food to families who lack it. The cattle are grass fed and free range, every product is Certified Homegrown by Heroes, and the beef ships to every state.
From the ranch's own listing: Whole, half and quarter beef for the freezer
These are the producers with full written profiles. Many more farms and ranches are on the registry with a listing, and every one of them is on its own state page.
Every state has its own page listing the farms and ranches on record there, the nearest producers in neighboring states, and the ranches that ship. These states have at least one member today.
American Beef Direct is a registry of American beef producers. We help you find a farm or ranch and learn how it raises its cattle, then send you to the producer's own website, phone or store. We never take the order, the deposit, the payment or a commission, and the producer is always the authority on price, availability and pickup or shipping.
Read the Guide: Grass Fed, Grass Finished and American Raised
Search the map or open your state to find farms and ranches selling beef close to home.