Our Livestock Buying Model
Occasionally, Clean Chickens will be purchasing animals from producers. When that situation arises, the AMS Kalona, Iowa Market previous week’s market prices will be used. It is expected to be used for awhile before the MN goat market is expected to be stabilized. It will be apples to apples, such as Selection 1 Meat Goats with a specific weight range will determine the price for the same species, weight category and type of animal. You can go to this link and scroll down to IOWA to get the weekly prices. Wednesday evening is the beginning of each week and goes through the following Wednesday morning.
Tote Services Vs. Purchased Animals
Clean Chickens and Co. will be providing tote services for producers who have a sales outlet already, but need their animals to be processed. The costs for the slaughter for goats and lamb is $75 per head for tote services.
Sheep Shearing Added Costs
Clean Chickens will be adding an additional $20 fee for lamb/sheep shearing for animals which have not been shorn. To maximize the meat the sheep are recommended to be shorn from the chin to the neck, giving you a better neck roast and helping us eliminate any potential hair getting into the processing line, and being out of USDA compliance.
Cutting and Wrapping Services
There will be cutting and wrapping services, but the prices have not been determined yet. We are working hard to make your end packaging competitive to grocery stores. The cutting and wrapping will NOT be custom, cutting will instead be available in an ala cart format and wrapping will be in a uniform count package. The cut list will be shared as we get closer to opening the Happy Halal Plant.
What about Offal?
You may notice, we haven’t mentioned disposal fees like many other processors. Clean Chickens and Co. is in the unique position of meeting many ethnic communities regularly whom are seeking specifically processed by-products. We have intentionally invested in special machinery to safely process some of these by-products into consumable foods and it is inspected by USDA. That income helps us to keep your costs down so its a win-win.
What is Happy Halal Meats?
Happy Halal Meats is Clean Chickens and Co’s brand for religiously slaughtered halal goats and lamb and then sold as wholesale, packaged cuts. In order to manage a good quality product and keep a trustworthy name, producers who are looking to sell Selection 1 animals must have their farm on file demonstrating it has gone through a scoring process. This scoring will be completed by our animal expert and takes about 3 hours per farm; which will then be entered into our system for tracking farm to table purposes.
Do you sell whole carcasses as Happy Halal?
Clean Chickens and Co. will sell whole carcasses, to be further processed but will not be under the Happy Halal brand. Everything processed in the facility will be processed religiously halal, and USDA inspected which will include a halal certified stamp.
What is the capacity for the goat/lamb facility?
The maximum daily slaughter capacity is 100 over an 8 hour day. However, starting a USDA plant from the ground up takes a minute to work out the potential kinks and increase production. We are projecting to not reach capacity until the end of year 5, which will allow producers a few seasons to increase their animal production.
Do you buy/process culls?
Our vision is to make Happy Halal a name representing good quality and consistent product for end consumers. This is from a combination of halal slaughter (with humane handling) and consistent processes which then determines the end consumer’s experience. We will not buy culls for the Happy Halal brand. **However, if you need culls to be processed as tote services we are happy to help!
