Every Monday Bungendore butcher Paul Darmody hopes his freezers holding prime lamb and beef empty in time for the arrival of a truck from Moruya abattoir.
After the truck is unloaded and meat is hung in the freezers, Country Meats' four butchers can hardly get through the doors.
"We don't buy carton-boxed meat, we are killing off our farms, our meat has to be broken down from bodies," Mr Darmody said.
"A lot of shops today buy what's called broken meat out of processing plants in cartons. We kill our own meat. Our produce has a lot more work in it, but that is the way I want to do it."
Small butchers are under pressure because of higher meat prices. Australian lamb production is estimated to increase by 3 per cent to around 487,000 tonnes this year, the largest volume on record.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics' latest commodities report says cattle and sheep production are nearing peaks. The 2014–15 Australian cattle slaughter is estimated to increase by 7 per cent to 10.2 million head, the highest since the late 1970s.
The United States, Japan and south east Asia are driving demand for beef and live cattle, and many processors are geared for export. Last year Mr Darmody stopped sending livestock to Cootamundra abattoir to be killed after the meatworks changed hands and new owners, Manildra Meat Company, switched to supplying only export markets.
"I do a lot of service kill work for people," he said.
"Between me and the shop at Braidwood, which isn't mine, we do a lot of service kills around the area.Little blockies, people who might have two cows and want to sell one to their friend next door, can't legally kill on a farm and sell it in small pieces, that is illegal. They want to do it properly and that's why we put it through the [Moruya] abattoir."
Each week when the truck arrives the Bungendore butchers chop their way through 25 head of cattle, about 75 lambs and 10 to 12 pigs.
"When cattle were cheaper it was a larger part of business," Mr Darmody said.
"It hasn't slackened off. People are prone to wanting to eat their own product. That's great and that brings us on board."
Although much of the land in the district has been subdivided into smaller lots, he says it is still productive.
"Look at the local Queanbeyan and Braidwood saleyards, both are well supported, not through big producers, but small farms and small amounts of stock," Mr Darmody said.
Lamb and live sheep exports are expected to rise in the next year financial year, but beef exports are forecast to fall by about 4 per cent, as producers rebuild their herds.
