Butcher question, getting your meat back?

My neighbor has a story about why he changed butchers: He took pigs over several years to one butcher. Had his pork chops wrapped four to the package each year. Then one year he couldn't get his slot in at that shop and scheduled with another butchering outfit. When he was asked about wrapping when he was at the shop, and he said four pork chops to the package, the guy was surprised and said "You probably really only want two, these are really big pork chops" So he went along with the guy and found out when he picked up his meat that the pork chops were huge. And he'd always taken in his pigs at the same size.

So for three or four years someone's brother in law was getting some nice big pork chops, hams, probably everything, and my neighbor was getting the other guy's small pig and not realizing it at all.

You have to ask around about butchers.

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-Northern NYS

I am a butcher's granddaughter and there are absolutely dishonest processors out there that skim the business a bit here and there to fill their own fridge, or worse if they have a regular retail case.
Out and out theft like this is more and more common today because we have folks growing up that believe if they can cheat without risk of getting caught, it's all fair in the game of plausible deniability.

However, what I am most concerned about in "sending an animal out" is not getting my own back as has been mentioned. Processors in some areas tend to book up quickly especially in fall when people both are hunting, and want to end the meat project before winter feeding.
When they are busy, and not worried about not having enough business (maybe due to lack of local competition) it's easy to get sloppy and cut corners by not marking the animals coming in.

If I spend 2 years fattening a fine dexter steer on good quality hay, carefully maintaining his health and wellness without using antibiotics, I don't want to take the chance I'm getting someone's weedy 15 month old corn fed holstein bull who God only knows has had antibiotics or not, and weather they waited for a proper withdrawal or not, or if the creature was ill or not.

I raise my own so that I can control the quality, not be victim of whatever someone else gives me.

We do "work parties" for butchering our small animals, and if I can't do that for my first steer, I'll have the mobile processor out.

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There is a time and a place for decaf coffee.
Never, and in the trash.
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That is just not true. Any cattle treated with any drug must be held until the drugs have cleared its system, including and especially the meat. Pumped full is just a myth. Far too costly to fill the up with drugs.

There may have been a case or two that drugs got into the food system, but it is rare, not the norm.

There has been a myth that today's young girls are developing early due to bovine hormones in thee food. More myth. They develop earlier because they are fed more holism, healthy food and sit on their collective tails too much.

We had a corned beef recall I believe about 3 weeks ago because it was discovered after the processing, packaging and distribution that the animals in question had been injected with bute (that's a horse pain killer) presumably to get them to walk up the ramp to be sold.

The "industry" isn't terribly concerned with scrupulous husbandry on America's meat supply.

It doesn't have to be "full" of drugs to have more drugs than it should and it only takes one weak or lazy link in the supply chain to muck it up.

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There is a time and a place for decaf coffee.
Never, and in the trash.
Are you an AZ farmer too? Arizona Backyard Farmers on facebook

I'd say the "industry" is very interested, otherwise, why the recall? but we really are getting off track. The point I was making is that the livestock that you cared for aren't necessarily going to be better than what you can buy at the store, but your expectations are always going to be high.
If I'd bought into the grass finished beef theory and expected my healthy, well cared for, slower growing, lean beef was going to be better than Ruth Chris Steakhouse, those packages of Round steak tough NY Strips would get blamed on the butcher.

The claim was made that they are full of drugs. I'm saying that is myth.

What local butcher is going to risk his reputation on something like that?
I think you're getting worked up about something that is not gonna happen anyway....

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

It's naive to think that everyone in every profession is always ethical in every business transaction. Lawyers, mechanics, bankers, corporations, butchers. It can't be said that it won't ever happen. When it does happen, that doesn't make it right.When skimming and mixing up meat does happen and it's the butcher's policy, it's very wrong, unless you agree to that.
Reputation--if you live in a large population, what are the chances that your reputation will be talked about unless you subscribe to something like Angie's List? (I have no association with Angie's List, though, I think it is a good idea.)

We have had complaints before on this very board of people getting their pigs mixed up at the processor.
It's impossible to expect someone to believe that a FEMALE PIG would come back 100 lbs heavier than when she left complete with boar taint.

It certainly depends on how a person chooses to run their business, but if they don't guarantee YOUR animal back *I* wouldn't take my business there.

Nothing emotional or worked up about it-- if a side of beef, is a side of beef, is a side of beef to a butcher; there isn't much point in going through the expense to raise your own and having a hand in the growing process.

If it matters to you, take your business to a processor for whom it also matters.

__________________

There is a time and a place for decaf coffee.
Never, and in the trash.
Are you an AZ farmer too? Arizona Backyard Farmers on facebook