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"Kill Your Own Meat" Business Thrives
Being 82 doesn't stop Tom Prince of Clayton, Ind., from providing an unusual service that's in high demand. As he has for the past 25 years, he offers a place for ethnic groups to do their own slaughtering of lambs, sheep and goats - which are a regular part of their diet.
Prince does a booming business, thanks
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"Kill Your Own Meat" Business Thrives 33-2-8 Being 82 doesn't stop Tom Prince of Clayton, Ind., from providing an unusual service that's in high demand. As he has for the past 25 years, he offers a place for ethnic groups to do their own slaughtering of lambs, sheep and goats - which are a regular part of their diet.
Prince does a booming business, thanks to a growing international community of people who, for personal and religious reasons, want "kill-it-yourself meat".
"I get a lot of people of Pakistani, Nigerian and Mexican heritage, to name a few," he explains. "There are Jews and Muslims whose religions require that the animals be slaughtered in a particular way."
In most cases, Prince buys the live animals from nearby sheep and goat farmers, and then has them available on his property for when his customers arrive. His business is open from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays only, so on those mornings the place is a lively hodgepodge of cultures and languages, as his clients make use of his self-serve slaughterhouse.
"They do the killing and the skinning, and we cut the meat up for them," he says. "We usually sell about 40 goats, lambs and sheep altogether, each weekend. In the weeks before religious holidays, our sales often double."
Prince employs five neighbors part-time in his operation, and has had a growing business based only on word of mouth. He incorporates the charge for use of his facilities right into the price of the live animals, which he sells for $1.40 per lb. For example, goats generally bring $70 to $98 each, including the "kill-your-own" experience.
Prince built his slaughterhouse in 1999 to comply with government standards, but prior to that he had been allowing customers to slaughter animals in an old corn crib next to his barn. However, a government inspector put a stop to that.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Tom Prince, 10303 South County Rd. O, Clayton, Ind. 46118 (ph 317 539-2702).
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