Online House Hunting

Old horses are cheap. Is it legal for me to buy one, slaughter it, and turn it into sausage/food?

Right now, all my horse sausage comes from Quebec, because it's just damn near impossible to find it for sale in America. In Belgium I had a wonderful horse steak at a restaurant, but American restaurants never seem to serve horse. But when you look at Craigslist or local horse listings, there are farmers desperate to get rid of thier old horses. The prices are minimal, between $10 - $50, sometimes even free if you transport the horse yourself. If I rent a horse trailer and hook it up to my truck, I could easily take a horse to my house. My house has a little bit of land, but it also has a detatched garage. I could take the horse in there and slaughter it, then process it into cuts of meat and meat products. I really want to do this, because it would be cheaper than getting horse meat from Quebec, but what is the legality? Am I going to have to keep this all on the downlow because of the law? I live in Cali. The meat would be for myself and my friends, not for resale. Old horses may taste a bit worse, but I can't afford a foal or younger horse. Too expensive. Like I said, older horses are basically free.

Public Comments

1. You ever sell me some horse steak "on the down low" and the law is going to be the least of your concerns.
2. Provided you're enticed by eating horse meat, wouldn't elderly horse meat not taste as good as young horse meat? I don't know how legal slaughtering animals is--it probably falls under animal cruelty. You could make glue to off-set your costs. Just saying. Really, this is quite an odd question.
3. If you put all that time and effort into working at a paying job, you'd have plenty of money to buy meat (and maybe some veggies) at the grocery store. Not only would you get fat, it might stop the dirty looks you get from the neighbors whenever a pet goes missing.