Horse slaughter

The Horse butcher or butcher Ross, regional abattoir horses, which in Austria also Pferdefleischhauerei, is a special butcher shop, where it is sometimes only horse meat and donkey meat.

Horse Butchers exist in all German-speaking countries ( Germany, Austria and Switzerland ) as well as in Belgium, France and Italy.

Activities of the horse butcher

The horse butcher is engaged in the production and processing of meat and sausage made ​​from horse and in extremely rare cases of donkey meat for human consumption and works in a butcher or in a slaughterhouse. The profession horse butcher has evolved significantly in recent years; instead of slaughtering the processing of meat has come today. Among the typical dishes in the Rhineland is one of the Rheinische Sauerbraten, which was at least originally made ​​with horse meat.

Slaughter

Many horse butchers slaughter either himself or buying products from slaughterhouses from the immediate vicinity, so that accounts for long animal transports. Some horses Butchers work with animal welfare organizations, so far as can be verified by them according to criteria of the Horse Guards. Also emergency slaughter be performed.

Dissemination

Butchers horses there including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy and Belgium.

Switzerland

In Switzerland itself, however, comparatively little horse meat is produced: 411 metric tons ( 2011). Approximately 5,000 tons annually imported, mostly from America (Canada, Mexico and Argentina).

Terms of Use

Since 1993 it is allowed in Germany, horse meat products for sale along with other meat products.

Criticism

The Animal Welfare Association Zurich (TSB ) has considered in collaboration with other animal welfare organizations the horse meat imported into Switzerland critical. The organizations refer to footage from the U.S., Canada, Argentina and Mexico show how horses beaten during loading with sticks and bitten by dogs, suffer like sick animals untreated and die, like horses more than a day without water, food or rest breaks transported to the slaughterhouse and be stunned there improperly. The Humane Society accuses Zurich Swiss importers and distributors to comply with its own animal welfare promise: you say, horses are treated in the countries mentioned under Swiss or EU animal welfare standards, but not the case in many instances. However, the non-European slaughterhouses possessed an accepted also in Switzerland EU approval, but recordings from two Canadian slaughterhouses would prove that horses would not properly stunned prior to slaughter.