Scott Irvine operates a collecting station for slaughter horses in Crossfield, Alberta. He ships horses to the Canadian Premium Meats plant in Lacombe. Scott Irvine also breeds Quarter Horses and runs a western shop (http://www.irvines.ca/default.asp).
The investigators arrived at the collecting station in Crossfield at 10:45am. Irvine owns a large property with vast pastures, several holding pens, barns, houses, a small arena and a western store. There were approx. 50 - 70 horses of all different breeds & ages in different pens. Some of the foals were very young. Several horses still had auction tags attached to their hips. There were large hay bales in every pen, which appeared to be of poor quality. Parts of the pen area were covered in manure, plastic and other trash.
A red pick-up truck and stock trailer was parked at the loading ramp and had already started to load horses. The men handling the horses were very young and appeared untrained. The loading was chaotic and the horses were very nervous. They were loaded in groups of four to five. One group was observed getting back out of the trailer and had to be re-loaded. The men used sticks to move the horses into the trailer and were observed hitting them across their heads several times.
At 10:50 am, they left and started driving north on Highway 2. At 12:00am, they arrived at the Canadian Premium Meats slaughter plant. Shortly after, they started to unload. The horses were unloaded from three compartments (5 - 5 - 4). The unloading was calm and no sticks were used, maybe because they knew at that point that they were being watched. A CFIA inspector checked the horses and wrote down the license plate. At 12:30pm, the unloading was finished. The truck left the premises and returned to Crossfield to pick up another load. At 3:24pm, the truck entered the plant premises for a 2nd time to unload.