At Dos Lobos Ranch, we believe in radical transparency—in how we raise our animals, how we care for our land, and how we price our products. This page explains exactly how our pricing works, why pasture-raised meats sometimes cost more than store-bought options, and how investing in nutrient-dense, regeneratively raised food supports your family’s health and your local food system.

✔ Slow-growing heritage breeds

Dexter cattle and Kunekune pigs grow naturally—not pushed by feedlot rations. Slow growth = better flavor, higher nutrient density, higher omega-3 fats, and elevated CLA (conjugated linoleic acid).

✔ 100% pasture-raised, grass-fed, and ethically managed

No feedlots. No confinement barns. No shortcuts—ever.

✔ Local, humane processing

We partner with USDA-inspected processors focused on quality, not volume.

✔ Regenerative land stewardship

Our animals restore soil health, improve forage diversity, and increase carbon capture.

✔ No fillers, additives, or imported meats

Everything you buy is born, raised, and processed in Texas, by our family.  And quite frankly, real meat raised the way its meant to be naturally, tastes far better than anything you can find in a grocery store and even some restaurants. 

You’re not just buying meat—you’re investing in nutrition, stewardship, transparency, and a resilient local food system.

Our Dexter cattle are 100% grass-fed and grass-finished, never supplemented with grain. Dexter beef is known for its tenderness, deep beefy flavor, and high CLA content.

Popular Cuts & Pricing

We price everything based on a sliding scale average.  For example: if our break-even price is $8 per pound (that includes feeding hay in the winter, management and feed costs of the brood cow that raised that steer, mineral costs, our labor in moving them daily on pasture, butcher costs, transport costs to and from the butcher, freezer electricity use, depreciation rates of handling equipment, trailers, vehicles, etc.), then we price our least popular items at or below that price (such as soup bones), our popular items are twice that at $16 per pound (such as ground beef, some lower-end steak cuts), and the most popular and most sought-after items at even higher rates of three times that around $20-30 per pound (such as ribeye steaks, tenderloin, filet minon).  

Ground Beef (90/10): Great flavor, nutrient-dense, versatile (Base price starts at $15 per pound and goes up for our specialty primal and ancestral blends that include the organ meat, and you can bet the butcher charges more for the exact measurements of the organ meat blends and the time it takes to produce them).

Steaks: Ribeye, New York Strip, Sirloin, Tenderloin, Picanha, Skirt, Flank (Base price starts at $20-30 per pound)

Roasts: Arm, Chuck, Neck, Brisket (Roasts are priced high in the $20 range because they are just THAT good -- fall apart, fork-tender)

Bones & Organs: Meaty soup bones, marrow bones, liver, heart, suet fat (Priced lowest somewhere in the $5-10 range, just at break-even price or below it)

Exact prices appear on individual product pages and fluctuate with weight.  In all, our average price across all retail cuts is $16 per pound.  This covers all of the operation and production costs of that beef and pays us a fair wage as well.  When we take a steer to the butcher, our worst ones have dressed at 150 lbs. worth of cuts and our best at around 200 lbs. worth of cuts.  This is the reality of grass-finished Dexter beef: smaller animals, not pumped up on grain (and also why we're working to improve our genetics).  200 lbs. x $16 per pound average = $3,200 in our pocket in returned revenue.  Our production cost (or sometimes purchase cost if we bought extra steers from another rancher) is a $600-700 base purchase price for the animal at 6 months of age, sometimes more, about $600-700 to butcher (based on hang weight ranges), and that leaves room for some overhead and fuel costs of about $120-150.  The rest pays us and pays it forward to the next animal in production, so roughly $1500-1600 is what it costs to break us even on producing one beef animal.

Kunekune pork is unlike anything in grocery stores. Their slow growth and forage-based diet produce:

• naturally marbled meat for a more tender cut
• clean, creamy fat ideal for lard
• superior flavor with high omega-3s and CL
  

Popular Kunekune Cuts & Pricing

• Bacon (smoked & cured, thick-cut, jowl bacon)
• 1.5” Bone-In Chops & Ribeye Pork Steaks
• Boston Butt, Country Ribs, Spare Ribs
• Ground Pork, Breakfast Sausage (mild, hot, maple, Italian), Summer Sausage (Original, Jalapeño & Cheddar)
• Ham Steaks, Whole Smoked Hams
• Leaf Fat & Back Fat for rendering

Bulk Hog Pricing (Half & Whole Hog) (Coming in late 2026/2027)

• Customizable cut sheets
• Best value per pound
• Savings on sausages, chops, roasts, and bacon

Pricing of Kunekune Pork at Dos Lobos Ranch

Our pork takes 12-15 months to reach a usable market weight (compared to production breeds that are ready at 6 months of age) and has a break-even price of about $7 per pound, so our average mark-up is around $14 per pound, with the most desirable cuts priced way above that (restaurant quality 1.5" chops and pork ribeyes), and the least desirable priced below that break-even point (leaf and back fat, bones).  Summer sausages cost much more to produce, so they are priced higher than our breakfast sausages.

Heritage Breed Pork vs. Production Breed Pork

Many production breeds are also considered heritage breeds, but grow to an acceptable butcher weight by 6 months of age.  The heritage breeds of pork can be easily identified by dark red meat at butcher, especially those raised in a pasture environment.  Kunekunes are a breed that was saved from the brink of extinction in the 1960's, 70's, and 80's with fewer than 20 individuals left in the population.  This unique little pig hails from New Zealand and the Polynesians.  Their name is from the Maori language and translates to "fat and round" and there couldn't be a more accurate description of these gentle-natured, pasture adapted pigs!  

The Art of Slow Grown Pork

Many people scoff at the idea of using Kunekunes in a meat program and some have even tasted the meat and find it tough and undesirable with far too much fat on the animal.  The problem with a lot of the "kunekunes" that have been sold are not purebred, and it shows in the animal's body and facial structure.  If you can't produce a photo of the animal you ate, you probably didn't eat Kunekune and ate a pot belly pig passed off as a Kunekune.  Our Kunekune herd is from registered stock and our brood stock are all registered, so you know you're getting the real deal.  On top of that, we breed and test for genetic tenderness using Igenity Swine.  Kunekunes have the genes for tenderness that many production breeds do not and are struggling to find.  So we have the paper work and the data to back up what we sell.  And hey, if you don't like it, visit our homepage and you'll find our Dos Lobos Satisfaction Guarantee.  It's a win-win.  (But we have a feeling you'll suck that meat off of the bone of that pork chop before you finish the rest of your plate!  That's our real guarantee!) 😏

The disgusting reality is eggs are a break-even enterprise at $7 per dozen when you take into account packaging, feed costs (chickens eat 3/4 lb. of feed per day at .30 cents per pound of corn & soy-free, non-GMO feed, and DON'T lay daily), broken eggs, eggs too dirty to sell, decreased production time during winter daylight hours (Oct.-Mar.), two months worth of lost production due to annual feather molting, etc., so chickens are only laying at peak production about 6 months out of the year.  We use eggs as a marketing and pasture fertilizer tool and nothing more.  We run roughly a flock of about 100 birds: 80ish chickens, 15 ducks, 6 breeding turkeys, and some feral chickens that refuse to be part of the main flock or stay in the electric netting, so who knows where those eggs are.  It could possibly be profitable at a grander scale, but we've found it's difficult to sell more than what we currently produce in eggs, so we keep it as-is.

The break-even cost is identified, and then cuts get marked up or marked down based on demand and market desirability.  The goal is to make back twice the amount that we put into producing it.  Setting our pricing up this ways does three things and is divided in three avenues: the mark-up covers 1/3 of productions costs, 1/3 pays it forward to the next animal in production, 1/3 pays us a fair wage.

And yes, our pork especially is absolutely priced WAY over grocery store prices, even high-end grocery store prices.  But this is the reality of raising slow-growing heritage breed of pig that takes 12-15 months to reach market weight.  The other truth of the matter is, we've dialed in our pork genetics pretty quickly, and we truly are delivering restaurant quality pork, every time!  Those who've been willing to try it already know... and they're hooked!

This gets a little more complex.  We do not upcharge for packaging and price for replacement cost of those items such as boxes, ices packs, insulators, etc.  These are also priced based on an average for each shipping or local courier zone.  The average cost of all three of our box sizes for shipping including full insulation and two 2-pound ice packs (4 lbs. of ice packs are used in each box, maybe more if it's the middle of summer) comes to $17.96 per box.  

Could we get the cost of materials lower?  Absolutely!  However, we're nowhere near needing a bulk order of these things (think several pallet loads of stuff) which the best quotes we've received is somewhere in the $10,000 range.  That's just not doable at this moment in time, but could effectively get the cost of materials down to about $8-9 per box.  Maybe someday we can grow to a point where we can buy in bulk and pass that savings on to our customers!

Local courier packaging is a little cheaper at just the price of a box, a cheaper insulated bag, and an ice pack or two and averages at $5-6 per order.

Bonus: All of our packaging materials are 100% recyclable and environmentally friendly from the paper box insulators to the disposable gel ice packs!

There is a base $8 tip that is included in the price that goes to the driver and we've found that unless we tip the maximum tip of $8, our job notice gets passed over by drivers and no one selects it (we do live about 30 miles outside DFW, so we're way out of the way of most drivers).  So, add $5 for packaging and base courier starts at $13, then it's roughly $.90 per mile.  

We have three delivery zones set up within certain zip codes based on distance from our farm: 15 miles, 30 miles, and 45 miles.  We've found that any courier delivery over 45 miles really goes up in price, so we don't offer it because 1-2 day shipping with UPS becomes the cheaper option after that.  So for the minimum if you're 15 miles from the farm, it is $13.50 to deliver, plus $8 tip, and $5 for packaging for a total of $26.50.  

Sometimes it's more, and sometimes it's less, and we certainly check before we overcharge the customer for courier.  Sometimes we're off by a few buck and we'll go ahead and pay the difference.  We also always select the cheaper service at the time of the quote.  Sometimes Uber Eats is cheaper and sometimes it's UPS Roadie, and we always reduce the cost before we charge the customer's order in case we get a cheaper quote.

The good news that we really like though is after talking with some drivers, especially with UPS Roadie, the driver gets about 75-90% of the money that it costs to deliver.  That's a win in our book.

The cost of shipping averages $25-30 per order with the negotiated discounted rate through Shipfare.  Add that to our average box cost of $17.96 and it costs roughly $45-50 to ship anywhere in the lower 48.

Let's be honest... after reading the pricing points above, how many people do you think would jump at the chance to have shipped meat delivered to their door for $50 per box?  Not many, at least that's according to marketing gurus.  Our meat is already expensive, priced competitively with high-end grocery stores like Whole Foods and Central Market.  Add on a $50 delivery fee and forget it.  (That's why we offer our Locals "discount" where you get the product at a base price, but you have to pick it up at the farm or a farmers market).  So "free" shipping can be earned after a certain threshold is met for your zip code and the Grazecart system allows us to set a rate increase per pound or even a percentage increase that only you see depending upon what zip code you entered into the website.  If you change your delivery preferences in your account, you will see different prices for each zone: farm pick up, 15, 30, 45 miles, 1-2 day shipping, etc.  The most expensive will always be 45 miles (courier) and nation-wide shipping (UPS).  

Shown below are our actual mark-ups based on distance from the farm.  Each of these increases gets to a ballpark coverage of delivery and shipping cost within a few cents when the minimum purchase for each area is made.  

Slight-of-hand?  Yes and no.  It's a marketing tool.  Our farm does not make money from shipping costs.  We merely recoup them for break-even.  We still have to pay these prices up front to get your products to you.  You're paying the middle man to get your meats delivered to your door.  The good news is, especially with local courier, is the majority of it goes into the pocket of your driver.  

Grocery Store “Grass-Fed” Beef

• Often imported from overseas (Australia, Uruguay, Brazil)
• Frequently finished on grain
• Labeled “grass-fed” but not truly pasture-raised
• Lower CLA and omega-3 content
  
  Dos Lobos Ranch Meat
• Born, raised, processed, and packaged locally
• 100% pasture-raised
• Never confined
• Regenerative practices
• Superior flavor & nutrition
  
  You’re paying for real transparency and real quality, not marketing buzzwords.  (Except on the free shipping... you got me there!)

We price our meats based on:
• animal welfare
• regenerative forage management
• humane processing
• living wages for local processors and ourselves
• sustainable business operations

Because it takes longer to grow, requires more land, and prioritizes animal welfare and nutrient density over speed and volume.

Is buying bulk beef or pork cheaper?

Yes—bulk orders offer the lowest price per pound and give you a freezer full of premium meats.

How much freezer space do I need?  

Much less than you think... these are smaller, heritage breed animals.

• ½ Dexter Beef: 3-4 cu ft (75-100 lbs. of cuts and fat)
• Whole Dexter Beef: 6-7 cu ft (175-200 lbs. of cuts and fat)
• ½ Kunekune Hog: 3–4 cu ft (45-50 lbs. of cuts and fat)
• Whole Kunekune Hog: 6–7 cu ft (90-100 lbs. of cuts and fat)
  
  Do weights vary?
  
  Yes. All prices reflect weight ranges on each product page.
  
  Do you use any additives or fillers?
  
  Never. No dyes and no nitrates (unless labeled in cured meats), no fillers, and no imported meat.

*Prices based on publicly available subscription-box pricing as of 2025. Dos Lobos Ranch prices are listed per product and vary by cut and weight.

• Local & Transparent Sourcing — You know exactly where the animals were born, raised, and processed. No mystery meats, no foreign grain-finished beef.
  
• Regenerative Farming & Animal Welfare — Full pasture rotation, heritage breeds (Dexter cattle, Kunekune pigs), no confinement — not typical for national box-meat services.
  
• Custom Cuts & Flexibility — Order only what you need: ground beef, ribeye, whole hog, half beef, etc. National boxes often force fixed bundles or limited cut options.
• Support for Local Economy & Land Stewardship — Every dollar stays local; helps maintain pasture health and supports small-farm sustainability.

If you're curious about starting your own shipping service of your own meats, U-Line has the best bang for your buck for packaging materials.  If you want branded boxes like ours, try Customboxes.io.  For a shipping broker, we're very happy with Shipfare!  In fact, there is a referral program.  You'll automatically receive a $100 credit into your account to cover shipping and delivery costs, and once you've spent $300 on shipping afterward, Dos Lobos Ranch will receive $300.  Click the Shipfare badge below to be taken to our referral page.

Feel free to reach out with marketing related questions.  Us small farms and ranches are not in competition with each other and we don't mind sharing what has helped us!