Abattoir experiences and costings

3 posts

Member for

8 years 7 months
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 08/23/2015 - 18:58

Abattoir experiences and costings

Hi all,

as someone who is yet to take his first animal to slaughter, I'm just curious about what other people's experiences have been like with their local (or not so local) abattoir. Have you found the services on offer to your liking, with a wide range of selections, or with unbearable limitations? And what are the costs like per beast, for any beast, from poultry to cattle?

Thanks in advance for all of your input.

Last seen: 12/26/2018 - 09:21
Joined: 05/31/2011 - 09:44

Hi Black Locust,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for the question.

I live in central NSW and we use what's called a custom kill process, where we supply the animal, send it direct the abattoir where the animal is killed and processed. The chilled caracse is then returned to a local butcher of our choice who does all of the cutting, wrapping and labelling of the different cuts of meat. If you include the price of the animal, plus abbattoir and butchers fee it works out to be less than half of what you would pay retail. The only thing is we often wonder if we get the same animal back as sometimes we are sure it has been different.

There are some abbattoir's listed in our directory who you could contact to get specific processing from

http://farmstyle.com.au/directory?tid=170

What have other members experiences been?

Regards,

Charlie

Last seen: 09/17/2019 - 18:07
Joined: 11/23/2011 - 09:38

Hi Black locust,

 

I would have to agree with Charlie about recieving your own animal back. For instance, a restaurant owner that we knew, wanted to try out Full Blood Boer Goat meat in his restaurant. So he picked out a castrated kid and we raised it until it weighed 40 kg at about 6 months old and then sent it to be slaughtered, delivered to the local butcher and then picked up by them.

The meat they received was from a skinny animal that must have been so old it was a gummy (toothless with age). We and they were ripped off, and we consequently, never had another order from them. It still annoys the heck out of me, whenever I think about it.

 

You can stipulate to your butcher, who is going to be the one receiving and dressing the animal after slaughter, what cuts you would like. If it is a steer, I usually ask for three corned silverside, 10kg of sausages from the trimmings, some 3 kg top side roasts, steak etc, etc. It's a good idea to sit down a couple of weeks before you send the animal to slaughter and decide what cuts and so on that you are going to want the butcher to do with your carcasse. Remember, that if you want to sell some to friends and family, that they can pick up their meat from the butcher that you have asigned the carcase to, as long as the fees for it have been paid to the butcher before hand.

 

I don't know what the solution to the problem of substitution of animals is, as you cant't walk with them from slaughter to delivery to your butcher. The other annoying thing is, that unless you insist on having them, the abbattoir will keep the liver, heart, suet and kidneys etc., which they sell on to processors of pet food and so on.

 

If the meat is for your own consumption, then you don't have this problem when you have a licensed mobile butcher slaughter the animal on your propperty. Of course then, you can't give or sell any to family and friends, which is not permitted under the Act. As any product from animals slaughtered on the property can't travel off the property- massive fine if you are caught doing this.

 

  Hope some of this info is useful to you,

Barb

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