Argentina | Mercedes | Slaughterhouse Lamar | Horsemeat import
When we return to the Lamar slaughterhouse at 12:00, the temperature has climbed up to 30°C. Today is the first time that a sufficient amount of feed is available. There are two straw bales in each of the large paddocks. However, weak and submissive horses are chased away by dominant ones and remain hungry. The straw should have been distributed in more than just two feeding places so that all horses could access the feed safely at the same time. Lying on the dirty ground, we see a stallion with a metal wire tied through his mouth, to keep him from biting. The hungry animal has apparently tried to eat; there is straw sticking out of the sides of his mouth.
Like two days ago, we see a large number of horses in very poor condition, many with leg injuries. Two horses have deep open wounds on their shoulders and a young horse has a severe, deep head injury. Part of the bone is visible. Many horses should have been slaughtered or euthanized right after arrival at the plant.
The carpal joint of a brown mare is heavily swollen. She is observed limping seriously, indicating that she is in pain. In the same paddock, we observe a stallion with a deep, open wound in the corner of his mouth, possibly caused by a wire. He also has bleeding cuts all over his face and his left hind leg is injured. The whole leg is severely swollen and covered in bleeding wounds. Later, we observe that the stallion tries to mount the mare whose carpal joint is swollen. She has to kick several times to fend him off, what is obviously very painful for her as she has to put weight onto the injured front leg. It is very worrying that horses of all genders, ages and health conditions are mixed together, as this causes unnecessary agitation and a risk for weaker animals not able to defend themselves or access food and water.
In addition to the many severely injured horses, we again see a number of emaciated, lame, pregnant, exhausted and weak animals. Some are lying on the dirty floor, as there is no clean and dry resting place. It has been raining recently and large parts of the paddocks are muddy; some are partly flooded.