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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] OT - how to divide a pig among buyers

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  • From: "Beth Spaugh" <lists AT rhomestead.com>
  • To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] OT - how to divide a pig among buyers
  • Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 08:26:27 -0500

Thank you Rivka.  Yes, we don’t have a USDA slaughterhouse nearby and no livestock trailer, and we prefer to kill on farm.  In NY, with a NYS custom slaughter we can legally divide an animal into 16ths, but have always done halves or whole.  In this case I have a group of people who have small freezers or limited funds or are trying this for the first time, and I ran out of buyers for whole and halves.  Yes, technically they are to pay the butcher separately, but our state butcher even is 45 minutes away, and since we always have some meat for ourselves (only do this once or twice a year), we are going out anyway and they appreciate us picking it up.  I have separate bills for them for the hanging weight and for the butcher.  In this multiple person animal, folks are giving very general wishes – bacon, chops, sausage, and with my encouragement a roast or two.  But, one person does not want roasts, and one person wants mostly roasts, which sounds very convenient, but is challenging me.

 

Beth Spaugh

Rehoboth Homestead, Peru NY

http://rhomestead.com      http://www.facebook.com/rhomestead

 

"How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry

"Without power over our food, any notion of democracy is empty." - Frances Moore Lappe

It's not that nice guys finish last. They have a whole different notion where the finish line is. - unknown

 

 


From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Road's End Farm
Sent: Monday, December 16, 2013 11:33 PM
To: Market Farming
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] OT - how to divide a pig among buyers

 

 

On Dec 16, 2013, at 10:49 PM, Carla Maness wrote:



We don't raise livestock, but the vendors at our market who do, butcher and sell by the piece.  A roast, or a steak, or whatever. We have beef, buffalo, and lamb available and they all do it that way. Would that be easier than trying to divide a pig 8 ways and have 8 different ways it should be processed? Will your processor even do that?  I'm just curious. Processors around here won't. You butcher a cow, pig or whatever, and they will do halves differently but that's about it.

 

Carla

 

I'm not Beth; but it's my understanding that the technicalities of the law in New York State mean that selling individual cuts is in a different category than selling a share of the entire animal; it requires different licensing, and the use of a slaughterhouse certified by the USDA, not only by the state. Theoretically, you're selling a share in a live animal, and arranging to get it to the butcher as a courtesy to the customer; the customer then deals with the butcher from there. Beth may prefer to use a state-only certified slaughterhouse, or she may not want to go through the additional hoops needed to allow her farm to sell individual cuts.

 

I don't know anybody selling eighths; but I have run into people selling mixed quarters of beef -- each purchaser gets some from the front quarter and some from the hind quarter, though I don't know just how the allocation is done. The purchaser still has to call the butcher and discuss how the meat is to be cut, IME.

 

 

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 6A now I think

Fresh-market organic produce, small scale

 



 




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