Argentina | Río Cuarto, province of Córdoba | Slaughterhouse Land L
Horses exposed to the rain and sinking deep into the mud.
Feed is put down on the dirty and muddy ground.
Horses without the mandatory ear tag standing in muddy pen.
A severely injured horse left unattended after being pulled off the truck.
When we arrive at the Land L slaughterhouse on Friday morning, it is raining heavily and will continue raining until Monday. The horses are standing crowded together in the open, soaking wet. There are shelters in some of the pens, but their size is insufficient for the number of horses. In a few places, we see hay lying in the mud. According to a new Argentinian law, this should be in a hay rack to prevent contamination with dung and urine. We monitor the fodder situation for three days. By Sunday morning, only scraps remain in the mud. At Land L, as at Lamar, we see horses without ear tags and injured horses requiring urgent medical attention.
We observe the delivery of horses at night. The vehicles used are cattle trailers without a ramp. On several trucks are downer horses that are unable to stand up. They are dragged from the trucks with chains. These horses are seriously injured and have open, bleeding wounds. They are left unattended in the unloading area for the whole night. If their hearts are still beating when the next day dawns, they will be slaughtered. If they have died, their bodies will be thrown into a pit behind the slaughterhouse.
Former employees have unanimously confirmed that heavily pregnant mares are slaughtered at Land L. If the foals are born before the slaughter, their mothers are killed anyway and the foals abandoned. Most of the foals do not survive and are buried in the pit.
