What is the difference between an Abattoir and a Knackery? That’s a great question!
Both an abattoir and a knackery kill horses and other animals, however, the main difference is that an abattoir kills for human consumption and therefore they are subject to more rules, scrutiny and audits.
Abattoirs that wish to export their products also have to comply with other countries’ regulations eg they have to have a license to export to the EU and be halal accredited if they want to claim that they are halal and export to some countries.
Meramist abbatoir is both.
A knackery on the other hand does not kill animals for human consumption and has far less scrutiny and no regulation.
When Maffra products were killing dogs in 2021, they were able to name their products what they wanted. For example they could mix any species together and call it ‘Chop’.
Many if not most people were unaware that they were feeding their dogs, horses.
Blood and bone are also a product of a knackery
Animals are sent by their local farmer if they are injured and or do not reach a human consumption standard.
Doggers advertise for these animals in all local papers and the phone directory. They then deliver them to a knackery and also try to slip them into some abattoirs. Below are links that show horses being killed.
WARNING: GRAPHIC MATERIAL
Thank you Farm Transparency Project for capturing this horrific footage and standing up for animals. Note there are 2 videos called The Finish line, NSW Racing’s retirement plan
https://www.farmtransparency.org/campaigns/finish-line
The Final Race (ABC NEWS IN-DEPTH | 7:30 also showed the Australian nation the horror of the Meramist abattoir and shocked us to the core.
Some of my friends refuse to watch such footage, although it is distressing I believe that if an animal had to go through it, I can watch it
PLEASE don’t be sucked in by all the smoke and mirrors, this is still happening and by high-profile racing people.
Yes they want us to believe that all the horses are being retrained but except for NSW, Racing Australia still has the option of knackery and abattoir on its retirement forms
https://www.racingaustralia.horse/RoR/Forms.aspx
One difference between an abattoir and a knackery is in how they kill them.
Abattoirs use a captive bolt – for horses, a penetrative bolt is used and it stuns the horse and allows the heart to pump the blood out.
This means that a person killing horses needs to be accurate and in many cases, footage from Meramist showed horses being stunned again and again.
Some were strung up to bleed out while conscious according to a vet witnessing the footage.
In Australia halal requires a percussive stun. No horse is halal. Halal applies to other species, for example, cattle, camels, goats and sheep.
A knackery usually has fewer workers and a gun is used to shoot the horse. The blood also gushes out from a dead horse.
#MOHM NEEDS YOUR HELP!
We’ve been threatened by those in the horse racing industry and those who benefit from horse slaughter more times than we can count.
But we are not going away.
We are going to persist until horse slaughter no longer exists for any purpose within Australia -- and until the horse racing industry makes drastic changes.
We are going to continue our hands-on work to offer lifelong sanctuary to as many horses as possible. We generally have 20 at just one of our locations - at any given time.
We have the acreage to take on more horses as financial support allows.
GREY HORSES SLAUGHTERED
ANOTHER MYTH BUSTEDYou may have been led to believe that grey horses (sometimes referred to as white horses) do not go to slaughter for human consumption. Sadly, that is not true. Horses of every colour, size, breed and age are slaughtered in Australia for human...
DEATH AT HORSE RACETRACKS
HORSE RACING VETS ARE BOTH DOCTOR & DRUGSTOREThe New York Times ran a series of articles on horse racing in 2012. Sadly little has changed since then. Today we're featuring a summary of one of those articles. The title: Racing Economics Collide With...
Join us on social media and become a keyboard warrior.
