[If] one slaughters an animal and finds in it an eight-month fetus alive or dead, or a dead nine-month fetus, he tears it open and takes out its blood. [If] he finds a nine-month live fetus, it requires slaughtering, and is subject to the [prohibition of] ‘‘it and its offspring’’; [these are] the words of R’ Meir. But the Sages say: The slaughtering of its mother renders it permissible. R’ Shimon Shezuri says: Even if it is eight years old and is plowing in the field, the slaughtering of its mother renders it permissible. [If] he tore her open, and he found in her a nine-month live fetus, it requires shechitah, because its mother was not slaughtered.