Less Stress, Better Lives

It was a case of unintended consequences.

The Bush recession, in addition to throwing millions of middle class Americans out of work and decimating retirement funds, made life much harder for small farmers who depended on selling the meat from the animals they raised. That's because many smaller, local slaughterhouses closed, leaving farmers with no choice but to truck their animals hours away to a larger slaughter facility. Catering to large producers, small farmers were often crowded out of line at these large facilities.

Not only did they have to spend more time getting their animals to the slaughterhouse, high gas prices made it prohibitively expensive. As outlined in the video above, a group of farmers in Pierce County, Washington, got together and developed their own solution: a USDA-approved mobile slaughter unit.

Note: No animals are shown being killed in the video above.