After being asked a few times,
"If we buy a goat for meat, what do we do with it?" I finally went through the process myself. This is what happened... As a kid, my family slaughtered and cut our own meat so I know exactly what is involved and don't care to mess with it on my own ranch. Instead, I went straight to the yellow pages and looked under 'Meat Cutting Service'. On calling a couple of these businesses I learned that most of them do not slaughter the animals. Instead they accept the cleaned carcass to cut, package, and freeze it. But I was referred to a custom kill company that drives to the ranch, kills and dresses your goat(s), then delivers the hung carcass to your meat cutter. I was charged $30 for this service. Do not expect to have your goat slaughtered the day after you phone your custom killer. They tend to schedule by area and will want to be slaughtering several animals in your area on the same day. And in the autumn they may be very busy so try to schedule 3 weeks in advance. The meat cutter I used was very reasonable and charged $0.45 per pound to cut & wrap a 50 lb. goat carcass. Everything was frozen solid when I picked it up and all packages were labeled. Total cost with tax, $24.30. So it is possible for anyone to buy a goat from the rancher and make arrangements for it to be custom killed at the ranch. Later the meat can be picked up, in neat little packages and ready to cook, from the butcher shop for $50 - $70 in processing fees.
But if a restaurant wants to buy your goats, that's different!
If my information is correct, goats do not enjoy the same exemptions from federal inspection as beefalo, emu, and some other exotic meats. This means that if a restaurant wants to buy your goats, the goats must be slaughtered at a federally inspected slaughter house. I'm told that this applies to any non-exempt meat that will be served or sold to the public including that for your church's fund raising picnic. This makes it much harder to supply ethnic restaurants with goat meat. In Eastern Washington State, for example, there is currently only one federally inspected slaughter house. The driving distances involved, and the small quantities required by restaurants (one goat per month?), make it very difficult for local ranchers to compete with goat meat imported from New Zealand! |
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