Quote Originally Posted by Eden View Post
As far as beef goes - the whole feed lot, slaughter house thing was just so incredibly nasty I won't buy anything but local, grass fed meat that was killed and butchered on the farm where it was raised. Needless to say I don't eat much beef....
Farms typically don't have slaughter facilities on-site. They have to ship the cattle elsewhere. The slaughter (or "processing" as it's euphemistically called) facilities have to meet FDA standards, and often take animals from many different farms. They are still small-scale operations compared to the large commercial facilities, but they are not on-site at the farm.

I get my beef and bison from farms. I go to the farm to pick it up the beef, and I buy the bison at the farmer's market. The cattle and bison are raised on the family farms, but they are slaughtered and processed a few hundred miles away. The bison is processed in Pennsylvania, the cattle in Virginia. Both types of meat are frozen at the plants and delivered back to the farms in Virginia. The meat must be frozen per FDA regs.

I like beef and bison. Local farm-raised meat is so much more flavorful and tender than the grocery store stuff. I have no problem eating meat, but do my utmost to avoid factory meat whenever possible. Luckily, the good stuff is getting easier to find.

NoNo--that's a great photo. I would love to keep chickens, but I travel too much. I do have neighbors who keep them, though. And ducks.