@Aaron is right. You sell it by the hanging weight which is about 1/2 to 2/3 of the live weight. Then the buyer works directly with the butcher/slaughter facility on how it gets cut up, how much say ground beef per pound, how thick the steaks are, how many steaks per package, how big the roasts, cube steaks or not, stew meat...you name it, they can get it. They pay the kill/cut/wrap fee and take it home. Here it will run about $250 to $300 for the whole animal so about $150. per half. We have the option of heavy freezer paper or vacuum pack and just about everyone goes for the vacuum packs. Pricing the animal is up to you. Most people here take the live weight price at the market; which now is about 1.25 lb live weight and double or triple it. All depends on what the "niche" is that you are selling to. We are mostly grass fed beef. We are getting 3.00 lb hanging weight, for the beef animals, and so after the cutting and trim etc it is costing the buyer about $6.00-$7.00 lb for usable meat. That's all the cuts averaged, steaks, roasts, ground beef etc. The jerseys are running $2.00 lb for a hanging half. But it is still a pain sometimes. We now have a couple of people who only want 1/4 so we get them together with someone else so that they can decide how they want it cut up. No they don't pick front or back half of the 1/2. The 1/2 beef gets cut up then they split it equally; if there are 10 steaks each one gets 5 etc.. Our guy will split it as they put it on trays to be frozen for a little extra or the buyers come together and split it as they take the trays to put into their coolers to go home. It can still be a pain....