We follow a long-distance transport of unweaned calves from an assembly centre in the north of Poland to three different fattening farms in northern Italy. The calves are approx. four weeks old. Many are from Lithuania and have already been transported for several hours before being reloaded in Poland. On the way to Italy, the calves are not…

Our team visits the Skaryszew Horse Market that takes place once per year and hundreds of horses are sold for leisure, breeding and slaughter. We are interested in assessing the transport conditions of the horses to and from the market.

Many horses arrive already on Sunday afternoon and are left in the vehicles until the market opens finally at 11…

Today, our team waits at the Lithuanian/Polish border for a truck of a German transport company, which we know transports unweaned calves from Lithuania to Spain. It is snowing heavily and the temperature is below zero. We observe eight animal transporters crossing the border, but none of the German company. At 3:00 at night, after waiting for 17…

In the early morning, we are following the calf transporter on the highway A9 when the drivers stop near Nîmes. They say the inside temperature is 6°C. We check the animals with a flashlight and most of them are resting. The younger calves in the trailer look more crowded and some of them are stepping on each other. Some calves are coughing and…

Before we follow a transport of unweaned calves from Lithuania to Spain, we want to

document keeping conditions for calves in Lithuanian dairy farms. The first farm we

visit has 100 dairy cows and about 30 calves. Five calves are only a few days old

and are kept in the cowshed. One of these animals is sick and being treated with

antibiotics.…

Our team follows a long-distance transport from the calf market in Château-Gontier, France, to three different farms and an assembly centre in Catalonia, Spain. At the market, some pens are so crowded that only a few calves can lie down and rest. The majority of the pens have straw bedding, but several have no bedding at all and the calves have to…

Our team visited two farms in Altorricon, Huesca region, in order to find calves that were trailed in July from Germany to Spain. The aim is to document how many of them survived the long distance transport and to see the conditions they are kept in.
Unfortunately we cannot find any of these calves from July, but instead other calves imported from…

The Tierschutzbund Zürich and the Animal Welfare Foundation bring a charge against the control post in Soppe-le-Bas, France, for cruelty to animals. Last April we documented that two downer calves from Poland were loaded by force onto a livestock truck. The calves, which were only a few weeks old, were obviously unfit for transport. They should…

At midday, the calves from Poland and Lithuania are re-loaded at the control post in France. Instead of the mandatory 24 hours, the calves have only been rested for 18 hours. Our team observes that a calf falls down on the loading ramp, remains on the ground and is pulled back into the stable at its tail. Instead of being treated by a veterinarian,…