Def seems like something to look into.
Great suggestion. Even offering to provide free part time labor in exchange for learning at a local butcher shop, might be worth it. I would think that this would be an excellent skill to have, for earning as well as bartering.sufficientforme said:
DH did call the Va Dept of Agriculture and they were very helpful. To be USDA approved you have to have a USDA inspector on-site whenever you slaughter and process. Apparently you ARE allowed to have a mobile processing truck without having the refrigeration and follow USDA standards but you will have to mark the meat as "not for human consumption". This might be a good place to start. Just kill, bleed out, separate into large cuts, take the unwanted bits, and call it a day. I would love to have someone do that for me. I could cut and package it myself and freeze/chill it for the 14 days as called for.lorihadams said:The biggest thing you are gonna run into is a place to store meat at the correct temperature until you can get it processed and packaged. I've seen mobile butchers but they have a cold storage and USDA inspected facility that the meat goes to once it is butchered. You have to think about the aging process involved with some meat. You also have to have a clean facility to handle large quantities of meat....think about the space needed to butcher a cow or a full sized hog. Going to someone's home and killing an animal is one thing but actually processing it for them is another. You would need a commercial grinder and a way to dispose of the leftover bits properly. You also have to have a system to get the meat hung up to skin it. And a couple of guns.
Maybe you could get in touch with a local processing facility to see what their requirements are and scale it down?
ETA: do you have a local butcher that might be willing to do the processing for you after you go do the "deed" and skin the animals? Maybe you could work out an agreement where you do the killing and transport and he does the processing?
