Maclagan Meats

Located just outside the small town from which it takes its name, Maclagan Meats is a roadside slaughterhouse and butcher shop, killing goats, sheep, pigs and cows to order for local farms. 

With an onsite butcher shop and in house curing and smoking equipment, the slaughterhouse prides itself on high quality, local service. Yet, what FTP found when we installed hidden cameras at the facility in 2024, was far from what locals might expect. 

Hidden behind the slaughterhouses doors, just minutes from the town centre, lies hell on earth for hundreds of animals each week.

For sheep, pigs and goats, they are herded into a small pen where a worker clamps an electric ‘stunning device around their face and head. Intended to cause paralysis, this form of stunning is often unreliable and ineffective, leading to animals being painfully electrocuted multiple times before they fall unconscious. Once they are dragged inside the slaughterhouse, their throats are slit then they are hung on a shackle line to either be skinned (in the case of goats and sheep), or dropped into a vat of scalding water (in the case of pigs). Many animals can be seen gasping and thrashing before and after their throats are slit, meaning that it is likely some are still awake and aware as they slowly bleed to death. 

Cows and large pigs are herded from a holding pen, up a race and into a knockbox, where they are shot in the head with a bolt gun. Trapped and afraid, they try to escape the race, even jumping up in the knockbox as workers try to position the bolt gun. Like the other animals killed at Maclagan, cows can be seen to continue to struggle even as their throats are slit while they hang upside down from a hoist, their blood draining into troughs placed on the floor. At least one cow is shot again while they hang upside down, while others displaying signs of consciousness have a knife forced through their skull and into their brain. 

Small, local slaughterhouses are just as violent, brutal and uncaring as the largest, industrial operation. No matter the size, no matter the place, slaughter is never humane.