Pregnant mares shed blood for special hormone

SELFOSS, Iceland (AFP) — On an autumn day on a lush green prairie, more than a dozen pregnant mares are waiting to be bled for the last time this year.

This "blood farm" near Selfoss in southern Iceland is collecting blood from pregnant horses raised for the sole purpose of extracting a special hormone used in the veterinary industry.

The practice has had animal welfare groups up in arms ever since a shocking video of horses in Iceland being maltreated emerged on YouTube a year ago.

People working in the industry now insist on anonymity when speaking to the media.

"There is no way we can make the public understand completely this kind of farming," the 56-year-old owner of the farm near Selfoss says.

"The public in general is too sensitive."

At farms like this one, several liters of blood are collected from each horse in order to extract the PMSG hormone (Pregnant mare serum gonadotropin), also known as eCG, produced naturally by pregnant mares.

Sold by the veterinary industry, farmers use the hormone to improve the fertility of other livestock like cows, ewes and sows around the world.

The foals are meanwhile usually sent to the slaughterhouse.

Iceland is one of the rare countries — and the only one in Europe — to carry out the controversial practice, along with Argentina and Uruguay, and to a lesser extent Russia, Mongolia and China.

The video published last year showed farmhands beating and prodding horses with sticks, dogs sometimes biting horses, and the horses weakened after giving blood.

Some of the horses could be seen collapsing from exhaustion after struggling against the restraints in their boxes.

The video caused a shockwave, both abroad and in Iceland.