By historicising meat production and veterinary public health in colonial Lagos, this study examines how the British colonial establishment, particularly its medical and law enforcement machinery, impacted native mores, norms and worldview regarding the animal, diet, disease, wellness, sanitariness, modernity and urbanity, and vice versa. It foregrounds the intersection of human and animal health, and takes animals as veritable subjects, objects and agents of historical change as much as humans.