Board 8: For the Chop
Livestock poured into the Yards for auction and poured out again after the auction. They went down the Stock Route, accompanied by the buyers’ drovers to the Epsom Road Underpass, called the ‘Back Gate’, where a Melbourne City Council stock counter counted the livestock. Those bought by graziers and farmers, the store cattle (bulls, cows and calves) and store sheep (rams, ewes and lambs) were for fattening, breeding and wool growing.
Some livestock bought for butchering were herded by drovers down the Stock Route to the City Abattoirs or crossed the Maribyrnong River at the stock bridge into the Angliss Meatworks. Other abattoirs that bought livestock from the Saleyards were mainly in the western suburbs, South Melbourne and Richmond.
After slaughtering they ended up at local wholesale markets, like the Metropolitan Meat Market. Originally, slaughtered animals were canned at one of the local meat preserving companies for export. Later, animals were slaughtered and frozen at factories such as the Angliss Imperial Freezing Works and exported to Great Britain and later to America.
The meat bought by the retail butchers was sold in local butcher shops, possibly ending up on your dinner plate.
Original panel sponsored by Pioneer Homes
