Á Íslandi voru árið 2019 yfir 5000 blóðmerar á vegum liðlega 100 aðila. Undanfarin ár hefur blóðmerahaldi verið hampað sem líftækni og nýsköpun og nýjum og vaxandi sprota í íslenskum landbúnaði og ungum bændum verið sérstaklega bent á þessa ábatasömu iðju. Svo viðurkennt er blóðmerahald á Íslandi að einn stjórnmálaflokkur á Íslandi hefur það meira segja sem sérstaka landbúnaðarstefnu að auka blóðmerahald.
En hvað er blóðmeri og hvað er blóðmerahald? Blóðmeri er hryssa sem gengur með folald og á meðan á meðgöngutíma folaldsins stendur þá er vikulega sogið úr henni blóð, allt að fimm lítrar í hvert skipti. Það er gert í nokkrar vikur (5-7 vikur að ég held). Þetta blóð er notað til að búa til hormón og það hormón er aðallega notað í þauleldi svína til að hægt sé að fara fram hjá náttúrulegu ferli, því er sprautað í gyltur til að þær hafi egglos aftur fyrr svo þær geti eignast fljótar aftur grísi og verið síóléttar.
Eftir því sem ég best veit fer engin framleiðsla á þessu hormóni fram í Evrópu nema á Íslandi og er öll iðja þessu tengd illa þokkuð bæði út af því að fólki blöskrar að það sé sogið blóð úr þunguðu kvendýri af einni tegund og gengið þannig á þann forða sem náttúran ætlar móður og ungviði hennar í móðurkviði og hins vegar að þessi blóðtaka sé gerð til þess eins og viðhalda þauleldi með aðra dýrategund sem eru eingöngu ræktuð til kjötframleiðslu.
En þessi blóðbúskapariðja er einnig illræmd vegna fregna af því hvernig staðið er að þessari framleiðslu í Suður-Ameríku en þar er gengið afar, afar nærri hryssunum og þær nánast blóðtæmdar, teknir tíu lítrar í hvert skipti og hryssum og folöldum svo hent út í þurra skóga. Á Íslandi er blóðmerahald í mun betra horfi og það er dýralæknir á vegum aðilans sem kaupir blóðið og vinnur það sem tekur blóð úr fylfullu hryssunum. En það virðist lítið eftirlit vera með þessum blóðbúskap og lítlar heimildir um hvernig staðið er að þessu.
Ég fann reyndar eina afar ítarlega frásögn manns sem hafði verið á íslenskum sveitabæ með hrossabúskap sem ólaunaður sjálfboðaliði, sem matvinningur og ég leyfi mér að setja hér inn lítið brot af langri frásögn hans um hvernig þessi búskapur kom honum fyrir sjónir
“So what happens next?” I asked, a little unsure of what we had actually accomplished thus far.
“The vet comes.” The farmer replied.
“What does he do?”
“He draws the blood.” I was confused…wasn’t that what we’d been doing for hours?
A beat-up, white pickup pulled up to the field and parked. An unsmiling man in a ratty t-shirt dotted with blood galumphed toward us. The farmer unloaded from his car an open-topped metal box with two large plastic jugs inside. A very brief conversation in Icelandic took place, and we were back to work.
The horse in the enclosure was much more nervous than the mares who were there before lunch. She kicked the ground and snorted almost continuously. The vet’s presence was changing the mood. The farmer rigged the enclosure with a series of ropes, which he quickly maneuvered around the horse’s head. He pulled down hard, causing her face to twist and look up, exposing her neck.
The vet had a much bigger needle than the farmer. It was roughly the thickness of a drinking straw and was connected to a tube that fed into the plastic jugs from the metal boxes.
He stuck the mare in the neck and the tube was no longer clear. The farmer held the rope taut so the horse wouldn’t move. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she stood perfectly still as the jug filled with her blood.
“How much blood are you taking?” I asked the farmer.
“Five liters,” he answered without taking his eyes off the horse he was restraining.
“Is she sick?”
“She’s pregnant.”
I looked at the mare and all the others in the pen behind her. Most of them did have extremely massive stomachs, unlike most horses I’d seen before that. One belly was completely lopsided as if the unborn foal was resting perpendicular to his mother — feet kicked out straight in front of him.
The next few hours were spent draining five liters of blood from the remaining pregnant mares. It did not go smoothly. The nearly wild horses were not happy to give up their blood, and several of them fought tooth and hoof to prevent that from happening.
One horse stands out in my mind, she was red with E45 stamped on the ridge of her back. As the pen grew less crowded, she was less afraid of the people who tried to corral her. Or possibly she grew more unstable with her mounting anxiety.
When the time came to get her in the chute, she fearlessly ran at Leslie, challenging her to a game of chicken. Several of us climbed into the pen to guide the horse, but she continued to run at us, pushing through the narrow spaces between our bodies.
Since we didn’t want to be trampled, we let her pass. Agatha stood outside of the pen, one pudgy leg resting on the metal bars as she watched.
“Idiots,” she spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. Then brayed, “you have to get angry with her! Scream at the bitch!” We ignored her. Instead we made a wall by linking arms, and E45 finally went where we wanted her.
“I’m going to eat that bitch. She’s pure evil.” Agatha’s face was twisted in an expression that can only be described as menacing.
“Eat her?” Derek dared ask.
“She’s going to the slaughterhouse, that one. I’ll have her for dinner.” She licked her lips in an exaggerated fashion. The whites of her eyes were clearly visible.
“You actually eat horses here?” I chimed in.
“Of course!” She snarled, “You’ve never eaten horse?”
“No, it’s illegal in the US.” I turned my attention back to E45.
She was standing at the back of the chute, pressing her backside pressed against the two boards Shaun and Derek managed to block her with. The wood was about an inch and a half thick, yet it bent under her efforts. The dirt slid from beneath her hooves, but the underlying concrete gave her firm ground to push against.
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“Come on, move forward,” I patted her backside. She ignored me, continuing to fight.
The farmer grabbed his stick and approached. He whacked her on the butt and hollered in her face. She thrashed and sprinted the ten feet into the enclosure. We fumbled to block her in with the metal pole and several slats of wood.
The farmer tried to wrap the rope around her head, so the vet could stick her, but she immediately started banging her head against the poles when he reached in. She slammed her skull around the enclosure like a pinball in an arcade game. Derek grabbed me as we watched in horror.
She was biting the air and stomping her feet. She kicked the door of the enclosure repeatedly. When she paused for a brief moment to see if anyone was trying to restrain her, the vet reached forward and slapped her across the face.
E45 reared back and hooked her front legs on top of the enclosure’s door. She thrashed more, jumping and kicking. She high-centered herself on the door but flailed until her weight shifted forward. Once her feet touched the ground, she twisted violently until she freed her back legs from the enclosure. She ran wildly into the field, whinnying loudly and riling up the horses she passed.
I was shocked she could still run. It looked like she would have broken bones and caused severe head damage the way she slammed herself into the metal bars.
Her particular brand of rebellion inspired three of the remaining horses to escape blood withdrawal in the same violent fashion. Each time was equally as scary, but the WorkAwayers seemed to be the only ones who cared if the escaped horses were okay. The locals cursed at them and noted which ones were going to the slaughterhouse.
“You’re going to slaughter a pregnant mare?” I finally asked, though I didn’t really want to know the answer.
“We can’t use that offspring. It’d be just as crazy.”
The farmer and the vet finished drawing blood while the rest of us caught five horses who wouldn’t be returning to the field with the others. One was the stallion. He was due in another field to impregnate another herd of mares. The other four were the escaped, “crazy” mares. We loaded them into the trailer with the most unfortunate destination for a horse.
Athugasemdir
30.9.2015:
"Ekkert svínabú sem Matvælastofnun heimsótti í fyrra uppfyllti kröfur um lágmarksstærð bása.
Þrengsti básinn var innan við 50 cm breiður.
Dýralæknir hjá Matvælastofnun segir að myndir frá íslenskum svínabúum sýni dýraníð."
Þrengsti básinn innan við 50 sentímetra breiður
Þorsteinn Briem, 19.11.2020 kl. 15:22
Þetta er hræðilegt. Það er hræðilegt til þess að hugsa að blóðmerahald gengur út á að taka blóð úr fylfullum hryssum til að trufla hormóna í gyltum sem búa við svona aðstæður þannig að þær séu alltaf ófrískar og eignist sem flesta grísi.
Salvör Kristjana Gissurardóttir, 19.11.2020 kl. 17:41
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