Description:

If you’re raising poultry for meat and lack easy access to a humane slaughterhouse, a mobile slaughter and processing unit may be the solution. Ali Berlow shows you how to build a unit that accommodates all types of poultry and can easily be moved to any location, making it a great cooperative investment for a community of small-scale farmers. Covering the mechanics of construction, sanitation, safety, and permitting processes, this guide shows you how a mobile slaughterhouse can make your poultry operation more self-sufficient.

Review

"Poultry producing books have proliferated in recent years; however, most have focused on slaughtering chickens for home consumption. None have laid out the details for putting together a small-scale slaughterhouse. Readers and communities with an interest in organizing an MPPT [Mobile Poultry Processing Trailer] will find this resource invaluable."

“Using her experience establishing a mobile poultry slaughterhouse on Martha’s Vineyard, Berlow comprehensively describes how to adapt her methods to other communities based on their unique needs to ensure an economically feasible production for poultry slaughter.”

From the Back Cover

Consumers are hungry for fresh, locally raised poultry, but small-scale chicken farmers often find themselves with few good slaughtering options. Community and food activist Ali Berlow provides a solution, demonstrating how to bring a modular, affordable slaughtering facility right to the farm.

Safe, clean, and humane, mobile poultry slaughterhouses minimize the stress and expense of transporting live animals, and they are designed to be used by small family farm communities.

This book includes:

- Step-by-step instructions for assembling the materials and building the unit

- How to take a crew through the entire process of killing and processing the first chicken

- A guide to preparing for the board-of-health inspection

- The author's personal account of the unit's implementation and success in Massachusetts

- Checklists and to-do lists for the well-prepared farmer

About the Author

Ali Berlow is the author of The Food Activist Handbook and The Mobile Poultry Slaughterhouse , and the co-owner of Edible Vineyard magazine. ** Berlow founded and served as the first executive director of Island Grown Initiative, a grassrooots nonprofit that encourages and supports a resilient and accessible local food system on Martha’s Vineyard. She is the co-host of “The Local Food Report,” a public radio program out of WCAI in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She lives in West Tisbury, Massachusetts, and in Putney, Vermont.

Temple Grandin is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Animals in Translation and Animals Make Us Human , as well as Thinking in Pictures, Humane Livestock Handling, Improving Animal Welfare , and The Autistic Brain. Dr. Grandin’s humane livestock facility designs have been adopted all over the world, and she is a consultant on animal welfare to several segments of the fast food industry. Her work has been featured on NPR , 60 Minutes, and The Today Show and in the New York Times and Time and Discover magazines. The story of her life was made into an Emmy Award-winning HBO movie titled Temple Grandin. Dr. Grandin is a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University.