- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
There's usually regulations in place preventing farmers from slaughtering and selling the meat from their own livestock. It would have to be handled through a slaughterhouse, and they're definitely not taking a risk on diseased animals that are malnourished.
There's nothing that stops that, specifically. Or Tyson would be out of business.
The requirement is to be selling meat you need to have it processed in a USDA-certified facility. Now the USDA isn't going come hunting you down for killing & eating your own livestock, and if there's a little meat-bartering going on they will have better things to do unless you cause an e. coli outbreak. But actually trying to sell meat at any scale will get the hairy eye of the feds upon you.
now IIRC there are some small-timer loopholes. For example, if you bring an animal you killed a butchershop, the USDA will usually pass off certification of the cleanliness to the local health department (I THINK there was a requirement to be initially USDA inspected and to agree to random inspections in the future) but there are significant restrictions about the size, equipment, and where your meat can be sold - the general idea being Bill of Bill's Butcherie can process down his own animals with his tools in the back of his store, and sell it in his store, but he can't sell that meat to the local grocery chain. Bill also isn't allowed to own/operate automated slaughtering machines - the idea is that Bill as a human can only process so much meat.
Its been too long since I had to deal with sub-market for meat processing, I'm just remembering how it operated around where I lived and working backwards mostly. Its also possible there have been changes to the laws since it s been a few years.
The usual thing to do though, if you have more than just a single animal (or if you do and the USDA slaughter house is conveniently located) is them to the slaughter house. And you're 100% correct that the slaughterhouse isn't going to risk their USDA certification over an animal that looks questionable.
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