The blood extraction starts at 8:15 in the morning. Blood is taken for 6 to 13.5 minutes from the pregnant mares. The handling by the employees is extremely unprofessional and cruel. Different objects are used to force the horses into the restraint boxes: long wooden sticks, short pointed sticks, ropes and rubber strings. The mares are…

Our follow-up investigation in Argentina and Uruguay in November and December 2017 showed that nothing has changed since our first investigation in 2012. We documented once again the whole production chain: horse collection centres, rodeos, transports and EU-approved slaughterhouses. At all places visited, horses are still systematically mistreated…

Our team observes the slaughterhouses Clay and Sarel in Uruguay before, during and after audits of the EU Commission and of European importers in order to detect any changes. Both plants prepare themselves for the announced audits and thus manipulate their outcome. Broken shelters are provisionally repaired, and horses with serious injuries and…

Our team returns to Uruguay in April 2018 in order to see if the conditions at the EU-approved slaughterhouses Clay and Sarel have improved. This is not the case, despite the repeated assurances of the Swiss and EU horsemeat importers. In the slaughterhouse pens, we once again find many injured, weak and emaciated horses, as well as pregnant mares…

In the afternoon, we drive to the estancia “La Paloma” of blood farmer Roberto Mailhos. We only see very few horses on the pastures next to the access road, where we saw more than 200 horses on our visit last year. Close to the estancia, we observe a mare standing next to her new-born foal that is lying in the grass. Besides them, there is a very…

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…

In the late afternoon, we arrive at the estancia “San Miguel”, which is only 7 km away from the pine forest pasture. According to our information, this is where the mares are covered in spring (September). When approaching the farm, we observe two horses on a pasture, about 200 m before the entrance. One of them is lying on the ground. When the…

At noon, we drive to the pine plantation where the blood farmer keeps a part of his mares, about 40 km away from the blood farm. We do not see any horses, but the pasture is very large and we only inspect about one-tenth of the pine plantation. We find many fresh horse droppings, what confirms that horses have been grazing here recently. On…

At 9:00 in the morning, we return to the blood farm to see if the group of 200 mares has arrived during the night, which is not the case, so we decide to look for them around the area. Driving from the blood farm to the stud farm, we observe a group of four horses on land which belongs to the blood farmer, according to the neighbour we talked…