1. Selling the Live Animal Directly to Consumers as “Freezer Meat” Under the Custom Exemption
There is a very important exemption from federal inspection for livestock producers that market
freezer lamb, beef, goat, and hog. This is the “custom exemption” which allows the owner of an
animal to slaughter the animal himself/herself or deliver it to a custom exempt slaughterhouse for
slaughter and processing. The meat and byproducts cannot be sold. Instead, their use is limited to
the owner’s household and nonpaying guests and employees.
In New York, it is assumed that a person owns an animal when they purchase it. Thus, a
customer can purchase a lamb, goat, steer or hog from a farm or live animal market, take
ownership of it, and either slaughter it themselves or arrange for slaughter and processing
through a custom slaughterhouse.
The customer does not have to pick out the animal himself or herself. Instead, the farmer or
custom slaughterhouse operator may select an animal for them after receiving the customer’s
order for a live animal or portion thereof. The farm owner or custom slaughterhouse operator
may act as an agent for the owner and arrange transportation of the animals or carcasses.
“Freezer” animals may be priced for sale by the head or by the pound (live weight). The weight
of the animal, or a portion thereof, must be determined on a certified scale if the animal is sold
by weight. If a certified scale is not available, then the animal can only be sold by the head or
portion.
Cutting orders must be directed by the owner of the animal. The animal must be identified
throughout the slaughter and processing operation as belonging to that particular customer. The
custom slaughterhouse and any agents for the owner are required to have the name and contact
information of the customer.
Although there is no official inspection of the live animal or carcass, all animals slaughtered
under custom exemption must be unadulterated (i.e. fit for human consumption). The meat must
be stamped ‘not for sale.”
Farmers can advertise that they offer freezer meat for sale, but must have an agreement that
shows that the animal or the portions were sold in advance of slaughter. “Freezer meat” is not the
same as USDA inspected retail cuts, and individual “freezer meat” cuts cannot be sold by the
farmer.
As in several other states, New York State officials interpret the custom exemption to allow a
farmer to pre-sell portions of the live animal. This interpretation allows the farmer to sell halves
or quarters—down to 1/16ths–of a market animal prior to slaughtering among a given number of
individuals. If halves or quarters are sold prior to slaughter, the new owners can agree to send
that animal to custom slaughter, but only if all agree that the meat will be used for their own
personal consumption. Cutting instructions should be provided by each owner.
In some cases, New York custom slaughterhouse owners will allow customers to slaughter their
own animals and bring the carcass in for further processing. It is best to talk with the
owner/operator of the facility to see what he or she will allow and whether they require the
animal to be skinned and quartered before being accepted for further processing. Many custom
slaughterhouse operators prefer to come directly to the farm to slaughter swine and cattle. The
operator will then transport the carcasses in as sanitary a manner as practical to their custom
meat plant for further processing. Sheep and goats are generally butchered on the meat plant’s
kill floor but can also be slaughtered on-farm by the custom operator. Again, it is best to call well
ahead of desired slaughter/processing dates to discuss these arrangements.
It is important to note that some states take a strict interpretation of the custom exemption and
consider the owner of the animal to only be the person who actually raised it. Therefore, it is
very important that custom red meat from amenable species never show up in commercial or
retail outlets in order to assure New York officials that our state’s slightly broader interpretation
of the custom exemption poses few health risks.
For more information on selling live slaughter animals on and off the farm, see Section
XVII.A “Direct Marketing Live Animals.” See also USDA-FSIS, FSIS Guideline for
Determining Whether a Livestock Slaughter or Processing Firm is Exempt from the
Inspection Requirements of the Federal Meat Inspection Act 2017, pp. 4-7, May 24,
2018, https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/16a88254-adc5-48fb-b24c
3ea0b133c939/Compliance-Guideline-LIvestock-Exemptions.pdf?MOD=AJPERES
2. On-Site Slaughter for Entire Animals Sold Live
In New York, the farmer can also allow the customer to slaughter and process the animal on the
farmer’s land. Farmers may not help the new owner with butchering unless the farmer has a
custom exempt operator’s license. The exception to this is in cases where the animal is not
successfully killed and the farmer must intercede to prevent animal suffering.
A sanitary 3-sided shed with a drain to an approved sanitary system has been recommended by
some inspectors, although it is not required. Substantial liability insurance may also be advised.
However, some farmers have reported difficulties when disclosing to insurance companies that
they permit consumers to butcher on-farm.
Resources related to on-farm butchering are provided in a later chapter.
A helpful poster illustrating humane and halal on-farm slaughter was produced by the
Northeast Sheep and Goat Marketing Program of Cornell University. See Northeast
Sheep and Goat Marketing Program, Humane (Halal) On-Farm Slaughter of Sheep and
Goats, http://www.sheepgoatmarketing.info/images/HumaneSlaughter.pdf.
a) Offal Disposal and On-Farm Composting
Offal disposal is a major consideration with on-site slaughter. In New York, on-site composting
of offal is legal and exempt from regulations on composting facilities, provided that the
composting is properly done.92 Thus, a permit is not needed to operate an on-farm composting
facility for carcasses from on-site slaughter.93 Restrictions exist, though, on the number of
carcasses from off-site sources that be composted.94
For more information on NY’s regulations on on-farm composting, see Organic
Recycling Facilities and Regulations, N.Y. State Department of Environmental
Conservation, https://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/98069.html. Please note, the direct link
to the actual NYS composting regulations is too long to share here.
To properly compost offal, a farmer should use a high carbon substrate (such as wood shavings
or straw) that will prevent any potential contamination of water sources. New York State
regulations in Part 360 of Title 6 of the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations, which include
the regulations governing the composting of offal, are currently being revised as of summer
2019. The revised regulations will likely address methods of burying animals. A draft of the
revised regulation may be available in the fall of 2019.
For more information, see pages 2-3 of NYSDAM, Agricultural Environmental
Management Information Sheet: Waste Disposal,
https://www.agriculture.ny.gov/SoilWater/aem/forms/AEMInfo_WasteDisposal.pdf, and
Cornell Waste Management Institute, Natural Rendering: Composting Livestock
Mortality and Butcher Waste (2002),
https://flsart.org/acmwg/carcass_disposal_guidance/Composting%20Livestock%20Motal
ity%20and%20Butcher%20Waste.pdf.
Special care should be taken with offal from diseased animals and offal containing infectious
agents. For carcass composting that involves a serious animal disease, such as mad cow disease,
a farmer may need to obtain special approval.95 For animal waste and contaminated food supply
items that include infectious agents, farmers should consult the regulations in Part 365 of Title 6
of the New York Code, Rules and Regulations that may apply to this type of waste.
Farmers can allow the skinning of the animal on the farm, but those customers taking carcasses
with the hide still on are encouraged to contact the DEC for guidance of how to dispose of the
hide.
3. If Selling Amenable Red Meat Wholesale, Retail and/or Direct to the Consumer
a) Slaughter Requirements
In New York all red meat for resale from amenable species must be slaughtered at a USDA
inspected facility and the animal must be inspected before and after slaughter by a FSIS
inspector. This is not true throughout the entire Northeast United States. For example, in Maine,
Vermont and West Virginia an amenable animal can be inspected and slaughtered at a “USDA
Equivalent” state facility and the state inspected carcass (or meat from it) can be sold within that
particular state. In Delaware, Maryland and Virginia an animal may also be slaughtered under
inspection at a Talmadge-Aiken plant.
At the USDA slaughterhouse the animal:
• Must be humanely stunned and rendered unconscious prior to killing unless the
slaughterhouse has a religious exemption in which case it must be humanely
killed within religious constraints
• Must undergo ante-mortem and post-mortem inspections
• Must be identified as one of the species that a slaughterhouse will be slaughtering
on the slaughterhouse’s application for federal inspection.
Healthy amenable species may be field-harvested on-farm for custom exempt processing but not
for USDA inspection. Non-ambulatory pigs, sheep or goats may be processed at a custom
exempt facility for human food (only for the owner of the downed animal, not for sale), but non
ambulatory cattle are precluded from the food chain and must be condemned. See
https://askfsis.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1191/kw/non-ambulatory for USDA
guidance on “downer” cattle.
Information on the requirements for field harvesting is provided on page 53 of this
Guide.
Because the returns from slaughtering small ruminants are generally less than for doing cattle or
hogs, some slaughterhouses no longer apply for federal inspection for small ruminants. Thus, a
farmer could not take a lamb to a USDA plant for federal inspection if that plant does not have
sheep listed on their approved slaughter list. In general, the large rails used for doing large
animals will also work for small ruminants; however, a slaughterhouse that is only set up to
handle small ruminants may have its rails set too low to be suitable for hogs and/or cattle.
Custom meat must be kept separated at all times from inspected meat. During deer season,
carcasses brought in by hunters must be kept separate from USDA inspected meat. Depending on
the size of the slaughterhouse and their cooler capacity, the FSIS inspector may ask plants that
process meat for hunters to accept no domestic livestock during deer season or to store deer
carcasses in separate coolers.
Farmers can sell USDA inspected meat direct from their farms with the following provisions. All
inspected meat intended for sale or resale must be transported and stored at temperatures below
41°F. Meat may be transported in a clean cooler with adequate ice packs. Frozen meat must be
transported and stored at temperatures 0°F or below. Inspected meat must be kept separate from
non-inspected meat. It must either be stored in a separate freezer/cooler from non-inspected meat
or stored in a separate area of the freezer/cooler to minimize any risk of contamination. For
example, if stored in an upright freezer, inspected meat should be stored on the top shelves to
avoid any leakage from non-inspected meat.
More on storage and safe product handling in a later chapter.
b) Amenable Meat Processing Options
Processing of meat covers a wide range of operations. It includes simple operations such as
deboning meat, the repackaging of larger packages of meat into smaller sized packages.
Processing also includes complex procedures such as the production of beef stock, the
manufacturing of bolognas, or the canning of a hash.
Amenable meat must be processed at a USDA meat plant under federal inspection if it is to be
sold wholesale. It can be processed in a state certified kitchen (also known as a 20-C licensed
facility in New York) if it is to be sold direct to consumers or from the farmer’s on-farm stand or
retail store. Amenable processed meat can also be sold at the farmer’s stall at a farmer’s market
and in limited amounts to off-site restaurants. However, meat products that are cured, smoked,
cooked, or marinated at a 20-C facility cannot be sold to off-site restaurants.
Keep in mind that the marketer of the meat must hold the 20-C license. Shared-use kitchens are
legal in NY as long as each operator has obtained a 20-C license from NYSDAM.
The butcher shops in most supermarkets and meat shops operate under 20-C licenses rather than
USDA federal inspection. This license allows them to process USDA inspected carcasses into
retail cuts and to repackage wholesale packages of inspected meat into smaller retail portions for
sale to customers.
It is important to remember that if amenable meat is processed by someone holding a 20-C
license, it cannot be transported to another state for marketing. In addition, processed amenable
meat products are held to the same transportation and storage requirements as amenable meats.
An on-farm restaurant may process meat products and package them for sale at farmer’s market
or at an on-farm store. This may be permitted if the restaurant has a 20-C license or if the
restaurant is permitted under the Department of Health (DoH), has a scheduled process filed with
both the DoH and NYSDAM. All other regulations, such as labeling and packaging requirements
are applicable.
c) Organ Meats and Specified Risk Materials
The customer can request various organ meats at a USDA slaughterhouse. The USDA FSIS has
specific regulations outlining the procedures required for cleaning, preparation, and packaging of
various organ meats. Typically, USDA meat plants will return heart, liver, tongue, and kidneys
to customers upon request. Parts such as the tongue, spleen, thymus, testicles, pancreas,
esophagus, stomachs (tripe, etc.), as well as hog heads may be more difficult to acquire in part
because processors may be less familiar with the procedure requirements for cutting, cleaning or
packaging them. Some of these by-products such as testicles, pig snouts, etc. can be marked for
sale as edible products but cannot be used as ingredients in a meat product.
Some animal parts are not available as either edible products or meat products. This is because
they have been identified as Specified Risk Materials (SRMs). Most SRMs are associated with
Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs), a family of diseases occurring in man
and animals characterized by a degeneration of brain tissue caused by prions (misfolded
proteins) that build up in the central nervous system and kill nerve cells. There are several
examples of TSEs in humans including Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD). Livestock examples
include Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or “mad cow disease” in cattle, Scrapie in
sheep and goats, and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in deer and elk.
Because the transmission of some of these diseases is not completely understood, the possibility
of transmission from animals to humans and vice versa has not been completely ruled out.
Therefore, animal parts such as the brain, skull, tonsils, eyes, trigeminal ganglia, spinal cord,
dorsal root ganglia, and vertebral column (excluding vertebrae of the tail, the transverse
processes of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, and the wings of the sacrum) of cattle 30 months
of age or older which may harbor any BSE prions, are not available for consumption and must be
properly disposed of.
The age of cattle should be determined by age documentation such as birth records if available.
However, dentition (examination of the teeth) is the final determinant in cases where no age
documentation is available or the inspector has serious concerns about the age documentation
records.
Tonsils from any species and the distal ileum portion of the small intestines of all cattle
regardless of age have also been identified as SRMs and are unavailable for human consumption.
The USDA regulations declare lungs as inedible even though they are not on the SRM list.
Generally, organs and parts not fit for consumption are marked or dyed in a non-edible substance
and taken off the facility.
Currently there are no official offal disposal requirements for the different species, although it is
recommended that parts which may have the potential for any type of TSE contamination (BSE,
scrapie or CWD) be sent to public landfills and buried. Composting is an accepted method of
disposal in the State of New York for amenable species. Rendering companies may collect offal
and then cook and separate the components for later use in animal feeds. As a result, some
renderers may refuse Specified Risk Materials.
Edible by-products may become part of FDA-regulated human food or cosmetics. However,
SRMs such as the brain, spinal cord, and eyes of cattle 30 months of age or older, the distal
ileum portion of the small intestine of all cattle, and the tonsils of all animals are prohibited.
Edible by-products may be used in dietary supplements and other human food including casings,
soups, stocks, flavorings, extracts, collagen, and amino acids.
For more information on when federal inspection of amenable livestock is required,
See USDA-FSIS, FSIS Guideline for Determining Whether a Livestock Slaughter or Processing
Firm Is Exempt from the Inspection Requirements of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (May
2018), https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/16a88254-adc5-48fb-b24c
3ea0b133c939/Compliance-Guideline-LIvestock-Exemptions.pdf?MOD=AJPERES
