For more than 40 years, mares have been impregnated in Iceland in order to obtain a hormone for animal breeding from their blood. A shock video sparks a heated debate about the practice, animal rights activists are appalled. A ban on the so-called blood farms is initially not in sight.
On a wide, lush meadow in southern Iceland on this autumn morning, more than a dozen pregnant mares are waiting to be bled for the last time of the year. The animals belong to a so-called blood farm near Selfoss – the horses are only bred to obtain a hormone for factory farming from their blood. Animal rights activists are appalled.
“There is no way to make this type of animal husbandry fully understandable to the public,” says the owner of the horse farm, who wishes to remain anonymous. “The public is too sensitive.” The industry has come under massive criticism since a shocking video of horse abuse in Iceland surfaced online a year ago.
The business model consists of extracting the hormone PMSG (Pregnant mare serum gonadotropin), which is found in the blood of pregnant mares. It is used worldwide to increase the fertility of livestock such as cows and pigs. After the mares give birth, the foals are usually slaughtered on the farms.
The video released last year shows staff hitting and poking the horses with sticks and dogs biting horses. In addition, the mares are apparently completely weakened from the blood test. Some collapse from exhaustion after resisting being tied. The footage unleashed a wave of shock both abroad and in Iceland.
On the farm near Selfoss, the mares wait, outwardly calm, until they are herded into the wooden boxes for blood sampling. The legs are fixed with boards and a halter holds up the head. “The horses can get stressed and restless. These restraints are essentially there to protect them and prevent them from injuring themselves in the box,” explains a Polish veterinarian, who also declined to be named.
The mares are anesthetized locally before the veterinarian inserts a large cannula into the jugular vein. Up to five liters of blood are taken from each horse within a few minutes – once a week for two months. The business is lucrative: he earns up to ten million crowns (a good 70,000 euros) a year with the blood, says the 56-year-old farm owner, who also works as a lawyer.
The Icelandic company Isteka processes the hormone PMSG into powder. The biotech company is the largest manufacturer in Europe and processes around 170 tons of blood every year. It will probably be less this year: after the videos were published, some breeders gave up. “The farmers were hit hard by the video,” says Isteka Managing Director Arnthor Gudlaugsson. He admits that there were problematic cases, but the video shot with a hidden camera “represented the practice too negatively”.
The police launched investigations into the recordings, the veterinary authorities inspected all Icelandic blood farms, and none had to close. But the debate about breeding farms continues. Many Icelanders only found out about the mare’s blood business from the videos, although it has been running on the island since 1979.
“Making a drug for farm animals just to increase their fertility above the natural level – that’s not a noble purpose,” says Rosa Lif Darradottir of the newly founded Icelandic Animal Welfare Association. “This is pure animal cruelty,” agrees opposition MP Inga Saeland, calling for the practice to be banned.
Stricter regulations have been in force since August. They are valid for three years. Until then, Iceland wants to make fundamental decisions about the future of blood farms.