Twenty-four hours, hundreds of trucks, tens of thousands of chickens, thousands of cattle, pigs, horses, rabbits, and geese.
Old, ill animals, exploited for years in industrial farming, young calves, tired and thirsty, forced to stand for hours, sometimes days in crowded trucks. Conditions are even worse if they are transported outside the UE – their journey can last hundreds of hours before they reach the destination.
Among the transports I’ve seen, I can recall only a few with no safety issues. Poultry transported in broken cages, without screens protecting from sun and wind. Animals with no access to water, cows mixed with bulls, tied by the horns in overcrowded trucks. Lack of dividers or faulty ones causes the animals to clinch and stampede each other during breaking. Geese that cannot straighten their necks, injured broilers, cattle and pigs, terrified calves – it’s all the reality when animals are just another cargo to be delivered.