Uruguay | Salto | Interview with a former employee | Blood farms for hormone production

We meet Martin Sanchez (name changed), a veterinarian who worked on a blood farm in the early eighties. The name of the company, which does not exist anymore, was Capo SA. He first worked on their farm in Uruguay and later in Argentina. His duty was to check the condition of the horses and to treat injuries which happened when they fought. He also had to supervise the blood extraction process and the work of the employees. In addition, he was responsible for extracting the serum from the blood, which was then deep-frozen. When there was a sufficient quantity of serum, chemists from Argentina came to the farm and processed it into a powder. Martin had nothing to do with the industrial part, but he heard that tests were done with rats in order to examine the effectiveness of the hormones.

In the establishment in Uruguay, blood was taken from the mares 10 times. There were three groups of mares and each group was bled twice a week. Three litres were taken per extraction. In total, 30 litres were extracted from each mare in the period from day 50 to 80 of the pregnancy. In Argentina however, they started taking seven litres twice a week. This made 14 litres a week and a total amount of 70 litres in the period of 30 days. Martin observed a lot of mares that were weak and immunocompromised from the high blood loss, and he ran into difficulties with the management. He did not agree with the amount of blood that was taken and believes this is the reason why he was sent back to the farm in Uruguay.

In Uruguay, there were about 2500 mares in total and in Argentina approximately 6000. The Uruguayan establishment tried to sell the foals to the army. Martin does not know what happened to the foals in Argentina and does not remember seeing foals in Argentina. He says that today he would not work again on a blood farm because of professional ethics. He believes that he owes a lot to the horses.

In der Niederlassung in Uruguay wurde den Stuten zehnmal Blut entnommen. Es gab drei Gruppen von Stuten und jeder Gruppe wurde zweimal in der Woche Blut entnommen. Bei jeder Entnahme wurden 3 l Blut gewonnen. Insgesamt wurden den Stuten 30 l Blut entnommen, zwischen dem 50. und dem 80. Tag der Trächtigkeit. In Argentinien begann man allerdings, zweimal in der Woche 7 l zu entnehmen. Das machte 14 l in der Woche und insgesamt 70 l im Zeitraum von 30 Tagen. Martin beobachtete, dass diese Prozedur und der hohe Blutverlust die Stuten schwächte und für Krankheiten anfällig machte und er bekam Ärger mit der Geschäftsleitung. Er war nicht damit einverstanden, einen derart hohen Anteil von Blut zu entnehmen, und meint, dass er wohl deswegen zurück zur Farm nach Uruguay geschickt wurde.

In Uruguay gab es insgesamt 2500 Stuten und in Argentinien waren es um die 6000. Die uruguayische Niederlassung versuchte, die Fohlen an die Armee zu verkaufen. Martin weiss nicht, was mit den Fohlen auf der argentinischen Seite geschehen ist, er kann sich auch nicht daran erinnern, Fohlen in Argentinien gesehen zu haben. Er meint, er würde heute aus berufsethischen Gründen nicht mehr auf einer Blutfarm arbeiten, und sagt, dass er den Pferden viel schuldig sei.