Does anyone buy their meat direct from the abattoir? I already buy wings and minced chicken & bones from a poultry farm near to me. (They also have a retail farm shop). Firstly because it is relatively cheap and secondly because its convenient as im not hanging around waiting for a delivery. I go as and when i run out. What i'm in need of is offal, tripe & beef. The last lot i got was months ago from a local organic farm shop. Three bin liners full for £10 Sadly they don't do it any more as they say all of the meat is processed before it arrives at the shop! Is there any red tape about selling direct to the public that i should be aware of? I rang two abattoirs yesterday, both of whom said they would get back in touch but alas the phone hasn't rang.

I do buy from a small local abattoir. I take a couple of large trugs with me and he fills them with lots of revolting stuff
I get charged £15 for approx 200lb meat!

I get charged £15 for approx 200lb meat!

HOW MUCH!!!!!!! What a bargain!
The last lot of offal i got had about four ox tongues in the bags. I had the job of entertaining five hungry hounds who were wailing, crying and scratching at the kitchen door. My OH had the lovely job of putting it all through the mincer. He was halfway through mincing the tongues when i heard this horrendous scream accompanied by a very loud banging noise. I thought he had minced his hand or something. I ran into the kitchen and there was blood everywhere. Floor, walls & ceiling! The ox tongue, being so tough had broken my beloved mincer and spun the remaining part of the tounge round and round. Took us an age to clean up. Well my son walked in the kitchen and proceeded to walk straight back out the door. Said he was never coming back home. LOL! I dread to think what would have happened if the meter man turned up or something.
Apart from that the offal had fed five dogs for 6 months. 

LMAO, but other than puppies wouldn't it have been easier to cut the stuff up into portion size pieces?  Let the dogs have the work/enjoyment of cutting it up themselves.

> I ran into the kitchen and there was blood everywhere. Floor, walls & ceiling!

I do know that feeling. I often think  if anything ever happens to me and the CSI people come and spray their luminol round it will show blood everywhere in this house and they will think I am a mass murderer. What with where I cut the meat up in the garage and where the dogs drop bits when they eat. Not to mention the bones strewn over the lawn and buried in the flower beds!

> LMAO, but other than puppies wouldn't it have been easier to cut the stuff up into portion size pieces?

Thats what I do. I get a big knife and cut the ox tripe into large chunks and put enough in a bag for a meal for my lot then I cut the large chunks up into smaller ones when I feed it. sheeps tripe are good because they fit into a bag whole and I just cut them up into meal sized portions when I feed them too.

I do think about getting a mincer sometimes but even for puppies I find as long as I cut their meals into smaller chunks I don't need one. I also buy chicken carcasses etc from one of the suppliers and they get those just portioned into large lumps.

I do buy some mince too which I find useful if the kids need to feed the dogs if I am out as they seem happy with instructions to give each dog say 1/2 a bag of mince, They look horrified if I suggest cutting up  tripe for the dogs. Mince is also useful; for mixing wormer into.

And seeing several pups playing tug of war with a large piece of tripe they have stolen from mum is a lot of fun too. But only if you have a summer litter and feed outside!!!

i had a good giggle at that i could just picture that spinning and blood flying.

I've just been back to the farm shop to see if they had any surplus. They offered me one ox liver for £10! I nearly fell over!

I do buy from a small local abattoir

How did you approach them? By phone or did you just turn up?

Looked them up in yellow pages and gave them a ring

Can I ask a question.....do you ever ever get used to the smell of tripe?

I've bought it a couple of times for my lot and yes, they love it but boy, does it stink!

I think it was sheep tripe I got and it smelled like silage

> They offered me one ox liver for £10! I nearly fell over!

that seems very expensive. I usually get a couple of livers in my order each month

Tripe the answer is no ! Ihave been having tripe around for more years than I care to remember and it still stinks. You want to try cooking it as I was originally advised pheweeeee!!

">You want to try cooking it as I was originally advised pheweeeee!!

lol, erm, no thanks, I'll give that a miss if you don't mind!

OK, I may have to give it a miss still then ..no matter how much my lot love it!

lol good idea

Ah, I well remember when my Mum used to cook tripe and onions for our tea, I used to mysteriously go missing on those nights, my big brother still loves it though.

does human tripe smell better if you know what I mean

my friend jim said he used to get fed tripe as a kid,said it was ok,but of course,they werent told what it was,it was just something you were given to eat!

My mum was made to eat it as a child. She and her brother used to call it slithery, polished off with a spoonful of castor oil! Oh i am sooooo glad we have moved on from this kind of diet!

I do, they have a retail shop at the back, it's always heaving, the meat is stunning and I know that it is local meat.

I bought a whole lamb, jointed and packed for £100 about 2 months ago, probably a bit dearer now as lamb has gone up big time, a full loin of pork for £20 and they do the most stunning sausages, burgers and faggots, get great big beef bones from them for the dogs too.

I think your best bet is finding an abattoire with a retail outlet attached, the one I use is the abattoire of a local family butcher.

I think i have rang just about every abattoir within a 50 mile radius to me today. No luck what so ever.
I spoke to an elderly gent who said "Aye lass, i don't bother with tripe, i just throws it in the bin!" I could have cried!

> does human tripe smell better if you know what I mean

It is bleached and cleaned, loosing most of it's nutritional value in the process, so yes it is pretty tasteless and when you cook ti the Polish way it looks like noodles in broth, pretty tasteless, and only tastes of what you add to it, they make it quite a spicy broth.

The stuff for human consumption is pretty useless as dog food.

> "Aye lass, i don't bother with tripe, i just throws it in the bin!"

Then offer to take it off him.

From memory human tripe smells just as bad as dog tripe, you could smell tripe was on the menu as soon as you turned the corner into the street. I'm just waiting for one of the celeb chefs to start banging on about how great tripe is and then the price will shoot up and be out of bounds for dog food, same happened with Ox cheek and lamb necks.

And Breast of Lamb, Belly of Pork.  Ox heart around here is already out of my price range for regular dog food menu, costing about £1.50 a kg.  Only get it as a treat for them now.

Zebedee - he will have to pay to dispose of it so it's worth asking him if you could just take some away on the day he slaughters.

Thats true. My butcher throws stuff at me because he says it costs him money to get someone to collected it (The Bone Man he calls him) He reckons I do him a big favour, so its worth asking.

> I'm just waiting for one of the celeb chefs to start banging on about how great tripe is and then the price will shoot up and be out of bounds for dog food

Not sure if all of the cow's 4 stomachs are suitable for human consumption, so we might be OK there.

£ 1.50 a kilo ?, that's pretty good I think, mind, I only have 3 dogs so even 2 k would last a while mixed in with their other stuff.
Ox tail, that's another one that's gone sky high.
I was trying to get sheep testicles but any that are there get thrown away at the slaughter house, what a waste.