Our team has been observing the exports of unweaned calves from the Rinderunion at Bad Waldsee for more than a year now. The transporter S. Röck is required by the competent authorities to feed the calves mid-journey at the control post of Bardy Bresse in France, before the animals are carried on to the assembly centre  in Vic/ Spain. In autum 2017…

Our team observes the slaughterhouses Clay and Sarel in Uruguay before, during and after audits of the EU Commission and of European importers in order to detect any changes. Both plants prepare themselves for the announced audits and thus manipulate their outcome. Broken shelters are provisionally repaired, and horses with serious injuries and…

In March, our team in Poland visited animal markets 9 times. Most of the horses brought to the market are selected for two dealers who buy animals in Bodzentyn regularly. Both belong to Italians. One company still transports horses to Italy. The other one has stopped and slaughters horses much closer, in Poland.
On the cattle market, the situation…

Our team returns to Uruguay in April 2018 in order to see if the conditions at the EU-approved slaughterhouses Clay and Sarel have improved. This is not the case, despite the repeated assurances of the Swiss and EU horsemeat importers. In the slaughterhouse pens, we once again find many injured, weak and emaciated horses, as well as pregnant mares…

In February our team visited the cattle and horse markets 10 times. Nowadays, the average number of cattle at the market is around 350 and around 30 for horses. We noticed only 7 cows with overgrown hooves, 2 emaciated ones and 2 with injuries on ischial bones (including a cow from Germany). The general condition of observed horses is good we did…

In February, our FAS team visited 8 farms and twice the cattle market in Lagow. They singed five new contracts with farmers interesting in improving living conditions of their animals. We noticed positive change in attitude of some farmers who were not very cooperative previously. We were convinced they would not be interested in joining our…

On a very cold early morning TSB|AWF and EonA team helped the Road Transport Inspection (ITD) from Kielce assess the transport conditions of cattle. It was not our first time in this area, and we were happy to see that after previously imposed sanctions, the cattle was not transported on 2 decks in the swanneck. Unfortunately, two out of 3…

In November, our FAS team in Poland started implementing new formula of Farm Animal Service programme. Our goal is to increase effectiveness of improving animal living conditions at Polish farms in swietokrzyskie region. We want to encourage owners of farms where improvement was needed, but motivation to change was lacking. In the new FAS…

Third time in a row, the TSB|AWF team visit the annual horse market in Skaryszew, central Poland. Most of the team spend long cold hours (real feel temperature between -2˚C and -9˚C)  observing the market and its surroundings, while one team member joins the ITD (Road Transport Inspection) officers to inspect trucks bringing the animals to and from…