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burnt

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 28, 2008
Messages
6,617
Location
Mid-western Ontario
The butcher shop that does our beef is strongly leaning toward quitting its custom killing/butchering of beef in the new year. No money in it, he said.

He can make a lot more on the barbecue pig end of things. And I believe he can.

So I was pretty grumpy to learn that today.

There are one or two other shops around but I stayed with this shop because of the good work they do. And also because he's my cousin . . . :roll:

We need more butcher shops, not less.
 
The new regs are putting alot of smaller operations out of business, they cannot break even. Sounds familiar.

I hope we can get this industry straightened out for all of our sakes or it will be the end of us.

I wish your cousin the best and hope that things turn around .

I agree Burnt we need more GOOD local processors.
 
How long will it be until the enough farmers and their customers just ignore these so - called "safety rules"?????

How many cases of E-Coli or other food contaminant problems have come from farm harvested meat?
From what I can gather, in Canada, zero, ziltch, nada, not one case of food bourne illness from farm slaughter.
Why are all the sheep following the burocratic BS?
 
burnt said:
The butcher shop that does our beef is strongly leaning toward quitting its custom killing/butchering of beef in the new year. No money in it, he said.

He can make a lot more on the barbecue pig end of things. And I believe he can.

So I was pretty grumpy to learn that today.

There are one or two other shops around but I stayed with this shop because of the good work they do. And also because he's my cousin . . . :roll:

We need more butcher shops, not less.
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like you need to start farming pigs.
good luck
 
gcreekrch said:
How long will it be until the enough farmers and their customers just ignore these so - called "safety rules"?????

How many cases of E-Coli or other food contaminant problems have come from farm harvested meat?
From what I can gather, in Canada, zero, ziltch, nada, not one case of food bourne illness from farm slaughter.
Why are all the sheep following the burocratic BS?
Click to expand...

It has more to do with the SRM rules ,and disposal regs.
 
hillsdown said:
gcreekrch said:
How long will it be until the enough farmers and their customers just ignore these so - called "safety rules"?????

How many cases of E-Coli or other food contaminant problems have come from farm harvested meat?
From what I can gather, in Canada, zero, ziltch, nada, not one case of food bourne illness from farm slaughter.
Why are all the sheep following the burocratic BS?
Click to expand...

It has more to do with the SRM rules ,and disposal regs.
Click to expand...

So what is the big deal? They don't become SRM's or "toxic waste" :roll: until they leave your property.
 
When butcher shops are outlawed, only outlaws like Gcreek will have a butcher shop! :wink: Government, in their never ending commitment to bettering all our lives, continues to destroy us a little every day! :mad:
 
leanin' H said:
When butcher shops are outlawed, only outlaws like Gcreek will have a butcher shop! :wink: Government, in their never ending commitment to bettering all our lives, continues to destroy us a little every day! :mad:
Click to expand...

You mean like protecting us to death? :roll: :mad:
 
It's always a worry in this business Burnt. The butcher that does our pork has had his business for sale for about a year. Luckily the one that does our beef seems very committed and looks like they will be in it for the long haul. I certainly hope so because if all these little plants go our retailing business is finished overnight. That would be a shame because there is huge demand for the products and service that us direct marketers provide.
I agree with GCs comments about the clean food produced with on farm slaughter and that is fine if you are selling to neighbors and friends out in the boonies but when our customers are in cities and we don't know who the people are we can't afford to take the risk. What if the customer has a relative in the police, a meat inspector or is a government person? We can't afford to have our business shut down this way either.

I'm really tempted with chickens though - we get constant requests to supply pasture chicken and I have a friend who rears and butchers his own. The only licensed plant in Alberta apart from a few of the colonies (unfortunately not our local one) is at St Paul so the procedure would be for them to send a truck complete with cages, load the chickens up and truck them 5 hours or so immediately prior to slaughter then go up and pick up the processed chickens. Our business is built on local food and low stress production so I don't see how that fits either one. Certainly a case of stupid regulation in my opinion.
 
jingo2 said:
If they guy is not making any money...can't blame him.
Click to expand...

After our discussion about it I reached the conclusion that it is not a matter of not making money at it. I think it is a matter of being able to make a lot more killing bbq pigs than he can on killing beef.

There is a lot more to this story than I can tell here. But let it suffice to say that there are times when greed overtakes need. He is forgetting who made his business what it is today.
 
The local butcher shops have a problem with steady work. In the fall everyone wants to kill their beef or other meat animal or have deer and moose cut up. Come Jan-march not much work unless you have some steady costomers who retail all year long.
 
Would anyone care to venture that a lot of the regulations of the smaller shops is promoted by the big boys?

We are in the process of hiring butchers for our farm business. We have the animals killed at a inspected plant they dispose of the waste. The Government inspector stamps the animal.

Our facility will be registered with all the necessary agencies. We will be government inspected in the processing facility. It will cost us 65 dollars for each beef killed and inspected. 35 Dollars for each hog killed at the kill plant.

We will employ a butcher and wrappers as we grow we will hire as many butchers as necessary. With one butcher and two helpers our labor cost will be 400 per day. A good butcher can cutup 3 to 4 cows 10 to 12 hogs. processing on a cow runs about 450 a head at the local custom shop. About 275 a head for a hog. At the end of the day we feel the profits will be better served in our pockets versus leaving it in someone else's.
 
Great to hear Pig Farmer, way to go.

As for on-farm kill, we have some friends that do it already, and they sell meat. Illegal, yes, in our bass-ackwards society? Wrong, certainly not in my eyes.

A day will come when we have to cut our own meats on farm and help each other more and more. From clearing each others driveways and roads instead of waiting for the County grader/plow, to taking in our elderly instead of sending them off to a "home". That's what communities could be doing, it's what they used to do, and what they will do again someday.

Community - 1. a body of people living in one place or country and considered to be a whole. 2. a group with common interests or origins. 3. fellowship.
 
PureCountry said:
Great to hear Pig Farmer, way to go.

As for on-farm kill, we have some friends that do it already, and they sell meat. Illegal, yes, in our bass-ackwards society? Wrong, certainly not in my eyes.

A day will come when we have to cut our own meats on farm and help each other more and more. From clearing each others driveways and roads instead of waiting for the County grader/plow, to taking in our elderly instead of sending them off to a "home". That's what communities could be doing, it's what they used to do, and what they will do again someday.

Community - 1. a body of people living in one place or country and considered to be a whole. 2. a group with common interests or origins. 3. fellowship.
Click to expand...

Hutterites, Minonites, Amish, they all work together whether its razing a barn or if someone burns out. Sad state is our Governments think and take the funds from us saying this seizure of funds is for the betterment of society. While nothing is further from the truth.

Our goverment takes from the people and ends up spending 58 percent of every dollar in administrative costs. A lot of budgets could be balanced with the reduction of duplicative actions.

I never could understand why monies meant for state programs must be routed through Washington to lessen the value of what was collected. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
PC the family that we buy chickens from takes them to the St Paul plant.

We are fortunate that our mom and pop run processor is still running, they are only a half hour drive from us . They joined with another local company and process alot of buffalo now too.

The problem with doing beef on the farm is where to hang them we thought about doing a cooler or even buying a refrigerated container as there are a few of us that would like to do our own beef. Not sell it, but for our own personal use.
 
The way foreward is to set up your own cutting and packing butchery, networking with neighbours to make enough turnover to hire full time staff. When I set up the butchery in Salisbury, UK, we sold the farm pigs and grass fed North Devon beef, with neighbours supplied the lamb, free range chickens and eggs. I did all the cutting and packing, sausage making etc, untill the clientelle was sufficient to hire a full time butcher.
We have built a chicken abattoir on two different occasions, which was not to expensive, we started by doing 500 with the family doing all the slaughtering, by the time we were doing 5000 per week, we started training staff to do the work with my wife the 'hands on' manager. If neighbours are interested in doing some chickens as well, it will spread the costs, again networking helps make this a viable option.
The important key is to keep the cattle/pig abattoirs open for private slaughter.
 

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