21. Juli 2015

Germany - Spain | Transports of calves

Our team trails a transport with suckling calves on the journey from Baden-Württemberg to a stable for further fattening in Spain. The transporter has a thick bedding and the calves have enough space to lie down and rest. At the start of the journey and while driving through the South of Germany the calves remain calm, but in the early afternoon we hear them constantly mooing. They are hungry, because they received milk replacer only in the early morning, a few hours before loading started. In the night the drivers exit the highway and stop at a stable in France.

According to the EC regulation 1/2005 the unweaned calves should be supplied now with adequate feed, but this is not possible on the truck and apparently the calves are not being unloaded and fed at the stables. After a one hour stop the transport continues and arrives after a journey of 23 hours at an assembly station in Vic in Spain.

We observe the unloading of the calves into the stables, but only two hours later we find some of the German calves again on a small truck that is transporting them on a four hour journey to the area of Huesca. They are unloaded at a stable for further fattening.

Animals are only allowed to be transported more than eight hours, if they can be supplied with adequate feed inside the transport vehicle. The transport we trailed violated Council Regulation 1/2005, because the calves have not received any supply during transport and this is generally not possible to feed calves individually on a transporter. We will send a complaint to the competent authorities in charge of these transports.