Eyewitness Report: Unimaginable Misery in Mexican Slaughterhouses

Over the course of two years, an eyewitness from Tras los Muros visited 58 slaughterhouses throughout Mexico, which is one of the world’s leading producers of cow, chicken, and pig meat. The U.S. is a main destination of meat from Mexico. Rampant animal suffering was documented in every facility visited.

Suffering on a Massive Scale

No matter the hemisphere, nothing humane ever happens in a slaughterhouse. It’s standard industry practice to hurt and kill animals during the slaughter process in ways that would be illegal if done to a dog or cat. Take a rare look inside the everyday practices of the industry that consumers support every time that they buy a chicken sandwich, a pepperoni pizza, or a cheeseburger:

Can You Stomach What Happens to These Animals?

• Some cows cried out in pain and fear as they were hoisted above a pool of blood and moved to the killing floor.
• Animals didn’t always die instantly after their throats were cut. Some cows were alive while their feet were cut off and their organs cut out.
• Some cows were seen kicking after their skulls were cracked open, others were still conscious and in agony while their ears were being cut off, and some were still breathing as they were skinned.

• In slaughterhouses that didn’t use captive-bolt guns, workers stabbed cows in the spinal column with a blade. Many cows were stabbed repeatedly before they lost consciousness.

• Some horses arrived at the slaughterhouse so crippled that they couldn’t walk and were dragged on chains to the stunning room.
• Horses were hanged by a chain around the neck until they suffocated.

• Some animals were beaten with clubs or axes before they were killed.
• Pigs were stabbed haphazardly wherever workers could reach them, including in the head and face. Some convulsed on top of one another as they slowly died in excruciating pain.
• Some pigs were likely still conscious when they were dumped into a tank of scalding-hot water.

• Chickens were roughly unloaded from trucks and slammed into hooks that held them upside down by their delicate legs.
• While they were hanging upside down, chickens’ heads were submerged in a tank filled with electrified water, shocking them and often causing bleeding and bone fractures.
• After their throats were cut, either manually or by an automatic blade, the chickens were dumped in tanks of scalding-hot water in order to loosen their feathers. Some birds may have been conscious when they were dumped in the tanks and scalded alive.
• In slaughterhouses that didn’t have mechanized processing lines, chickens were stuffed headfirst into metal cones, with their heads sticking out of the bottom.

• Workers grabbed the chickens’ heads and cut their throats with a knife or thrust the knife into the birds’ mouths. Afterward, the frantic animals sometimes spent several minutes writhing in agony, with their heads jerking and their eyes wide open.

Help Stop This Suffering 

The violence and cruelty seen in these slaughterhouses are not isolated incidents—they are inherent and standard in this industry. Animals suffer throughout the entire process of their exploitation: from a life of misery and abuse on a factory farm to crowded and stressful transport to being punched, kicked, and electrically shocked upon arriving at the slaughterhouse to being hung upside down, slashed in the throat, and left to bleed to death.

Meat, dairy “products,” and eggs are cruelly produced no matter where they come from. Go vegan so that no one has to suffer and die for your meal.