At 04:20 PM 7/30/99 -0400, you wrote:
>I want to look into buying a whole cow or pig (dead and processed, of
>course) from some nice little local farm. The meat would probably be much
>cheaper per pound that way, plus it would mean fewer hormones and such.
>Anyone do that? How do you go about finding a source?

don't know where you are writing from, but here in the states at least
farmers no longer do their own butchering.  And if they do some (my family
used to until recently) health codes prohibit the sale of the meat to
others (private consumption is not regulated)

what you want to do is go a butcher shop.  there you will be able to order
a whole beef, etc.  Of course, finding one that sells organic meat is not
easy.  I believe their are several that advertise on the web that do sell
it.  But the cost of shipping is going to be high.

(or you could just buy a hunting license ...  it's cheaper and far more fun)