Carey Bros Abattoir

Established in 1944, Carey Bros is a family run slaughterhouse and butcher shop operating in the small town of Yangan, in the Southern Downs region of QLD. Each week, dozens of cows and pigs and hundreds of sheep are killed at the slaughterhouse, which in 2020 was awarded a state government Rural Economic Development (RED) grant to upgrade their facilities.

In early 2019, anonymous activists installed hidden cameras at Carey Bros Slaughterhouse in Yangan, QLD, and provided the footage to FTP. Over the course of just one day, they captured horrific brutality towards sheep, pigs and cows, who were beaten by workers and killed, often without effective stunning. Following this exposé, activists staged a lock on at the facility as part of the Dominion anniversary day of action. Those involved chained themselves together on the kill floor, stopping the killing and securing the release of three sheep, who were taken to live out their lives at an animal sanctuary. 

In 2024, FTP returned to Carey Bros to investigate whether anything had changed. Our hidden cameras revealed:

• Sheep, goats and pigs being punched, kicked, pulled by ears and horns, roughly shoved and thrown, or beaten with sticks, by workers moving them from the holding pens to the 'race' and into the restraint
• Animals escaping the race and restraint, running loose in the kill room and processing areas
• Escaped animals being roughly handled and improperly stunned when returned to the kill table
• Sheep, pigs, and goats being stunned ineffectively, in multiple cases leading to animals being killed while exhibiting signs of consciousness: blinking, gasping, and struggling
• Some animals being killed while fully conscious with no stunning at all, including one sheep who is stabbed twice and then decapitated by a frustrated worker
• Cows being electrocuted multiples times before and after sticking
• Cows being ineffectively stunned via bolt gun, requiring multiple attempts to effectively stun them as they continue to struggle in the knockbox
• Ineffective bolt gun stunning leading to strong responses from some cows during electrical stunning: head lifting, rapid kicking, thrashing, etc
• Larger pigs in the knockbox are ineffectively bolt gunned, causing intense thrashing and spasming while workers attempt to raise them to the shackle line
• Multiple pigs still seemingly conscious after being lowered into the scalding tanks, thrashing when they are lowered into the water and ultimately drowning.