Warning: This post contains text descriptions of the processing of cows.
I had spent the past hour walking around Crysler mentally preparing myself for . . . something. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect.
If I didn’t get into an abattoir, I knew this story would be missing a crucial link.
It was time.
Back at Desormeaux Meat, I exchange the meat cutter’s white coat for the abattoir’s blue coat. The blue coat weighs heavier on my body (and maybe my mind) than the white, but my mind was most likely playing tricks on me. While struggling with the hair net, Amber mentions that she has never observed the processing of her animals here but that they have a stellar reputation.
“Let me know how they treat my animals ok?”
With the blue coat and hair net securely fastened to my head, I head back to my car for final preparations. I can’t take pictures but notes are ok so I grab my notebook and more importantly, check whether I can slide it into the pockets consistently.
Walking towards the abattoir doors. I introduce myself to two guys in blue coats hanging out at the front . . . and I’m sad to say that I didn’t get their names. No introductions here. Just “I’m Vu and I was told to show up at this time to observe”. One of them jokes about whether I’m up for working with them and whether I’m good with a knife. Not knowing how to respond, I say “sure” in jest but with the provincial inspector on-site, we all know that I would get nowhere close to the animals.
I walk past the dumpster, through the exterior doors, past a small office area and then through another small door into the main processing room. On my way in, I grab a pair of latex gloves and pray I don’t drop the pen on the processing floor.
The processing floor is simply laid out. A thin corridor extends out from my right and merges with a small room.
It’s very bright, the walls a piercing white that forces me to squint. Again, no off-putting odour, which I would learn later comes from the daily cleaning routine of pressure wash, soap down and pressure wash (admittedly a vast oversimplification). Classic rock from a local radio station echoes throughout the room, aided by the high ceilings and by the hard concrete surfaces.
Immediately to my right along a thin corridor, half of a cow is suspended from the ceiling being sprayed with a chemical mixture called “Intervention,” used to kill surface bacteria. The Intervention is a liquid spray; its droplets hanging in the air, creating a thin mist surrounding the cow and sidelit by rays of light streaming through the window. It’s absurdly beautiful and austere and makes me wish I had my camera.
Looking up, I see a series of rails on the ceiling from which the cow is hanging but careful examination doesn’t provide any clues on how the butchers get something so heavy up onto the ceiling. Eventually this cow will be pushed into the room freezer on the cutting side.
I walk through the corridor past the carcass and enter the main processing area, a small rectangle of approximately 10 ft x 12 ft.
The butchers are returning from their lunch break and slowly prepping for the rest of the day.
First up on the schedule are Amber’s cows.
Compared to the meat cutting floor, there’s not much in the way of small talk although that might be due to the presence of the provincial inspector. Everyone is all business as she comes in and stakes a position next to a table along the western wall.
There are now six people on the processing floor. Four butchers, the provincial inspector and me. Every so often, the owner would stroll through as well doing some small errand. The processing floor feels much smaller and I can feel the sweat collect under the plasticky feel of the latex gloves.
One of Amber’s cows is led to the pen along the eastern wall and the afternoon starts. The butcher lines up a pneumatic gun with her head through a small opening in the pen and holds down the trigger. One shot and down she goes. The butcher steps through the pen door and quickly makes an incision in the cow’s throat and steps back. As the cow’s blood flows onto the floor in a thick sludgy stream of red, the owner comes out with a mop and starts pushing the blood to the drain, which is connected to a blood tank and will be sent to the biodigester in Spencerville. With the blood touching the floor, there’s nothing else he can do with it. But if he had a way of collecting the cows’ blood without it hitting the floor, he would be able to legally make blood pudding.
As a small trickle of blood inches towards my hiking boots, I realize that I am severely underdressed. While we all have blue coats, all of the workers are clad in rubber including rubber boots and a rubber apron with a toolbelt fastened via a chain. The rubber is functional; the butchers would routinely blast themselves with water from a wall mounted high pressure hose on the southern wall to clean off the detritus on their hands and feet.
After what feels like an abnormally long time watching the blood congeal, a winch is attached to the cow’s legs, allowing it to be pulled out of the pen. Once clear, the butcher bangs hooks through the hooves and attaches the body to a motorized pulley, suspending the cow in the air and placing her upside down atop a raised two bar platform for easy cutting.
The first butcher places his initial focus on the head to sever it from the body so another butcher can continue to break down the head at another station. With the head separated, small Incisions are made around the hooves to start cutting and pulling away the hide from the body. With each successive tug and pull, more flesh Is exposed and small clouds of steam rise from the body. The hide is draped along the platform, almost looking like a dress.
With the amount of cows that go through the abattoir, I assumed that they would keep the hide but there is no longer a market for the hides and with the additional hurdles of drying, salting and storage, the hides go into the dumpster to go to the biodigestor.
With the hide fully off, the butcher revs up a chainsaw and makes an incision along the belly and cuts off the horns. With the spinal column now visible, the butcher grabs a bottle and sprays it with ink, a federal safety requirement for cows older than 30 months against Mad Cow Disease to show the specified risk material when the meat is cut.
Using a switch covered in a plastic bag, the body is pulled up even higher into the air, now suspended by two hooves. The body is moved along ceiling-mounted rails to a different station manned by a different butcher while the first butcher proceeds to process the next cow. Before beginning, the second worker wraps a bag around the intestines to make sure that there is no potential of contamination from an accidental cut. He pulls out an organ tray, locks it in place and jumps on top for a higher perch to get at the internal organs.
From my perspective, the next part seems so easy. A snip here, a snip there and all of the organs just come tumbling out into a pile on the tray where they are separated and delivered to the inspector’s table. She does her own cuts, looking at flaps before declaring them clean.
Once the inspector is finished looking at the organs, they go into a bucket and the owner pulls the bucket out to the dumpster for the biodigestor.
In preparation for the next step of cutting the cow in half, the butcher hops onto a small stepladder. At the top, he grabs a chainsaw hanging from the ceiling. Popping sounds echo off the walls as the vertebrae are sliced cleanly down the middle. And just like that, it’s done. The two halves are sent along the rail system to the thin corridor to be sprayed with Intervention.
And that’s the processing for one cow. I’m not timing anything because it’s hard enough gripping the pen and notebook with the gloves but the speed of this is insane. Sure enough, the second of Amber’s cows is ready for the second butcher by the time the two halves are sent off.
Once the cows are through, small animals are next. The main butcher is already ushering them into the pen.
I pack up for real this time, grabbing my meat order from Amber and double checking that I have my camera gear and notebook in the car.
I say my good byes to Amber and thank her profusely for the opportunity. Even though it’s 3PM, there’s still more work to be done and Amber heads back in to work with the meat cutters.
There is no epiphany on the drive home. Or even four months after the experience.
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