The “jineteada” is a traditional type of rodeo that is practised in Uruguay and some other South American countries. The rider has to stay for 6 to 15 seconds on the back of a bucking horse that is feral or untrained. First, the horse is tied to a wooden post and the eyes are blindfolded. When the rider is ready, the cover is taken off and the…

On the next day after the theory, the team follows ITD cars north of Łódź and we start our practical training near a big pig slaughterhouse. Three trucks are directed to inspection area, one after another. We suspect overloading, but after careful measurements, calculation and analysis of documents the number of animals is found to be correct.…

This day is booked for theory training for Road Transport Inspection in Łódź region. The room is small, but manages to accommodate over 20 persons. The inspectors follow carefully all 6 presentations and share problems they encounter in their animal transport inspections. Our expert, dr Rabitsch, provides tips how to solve difficult situations. The…

Following the theoretical training of the day before, the TSB/AWF and Eyes on Animals team with dr Rabitsch drives to a designated place on route 2 (stretching from eastern border of Poland to the west) for a practical part of the training. We are accompanied by 5 ITD cars with 2-person teams each. The weather is challenging: 0 degrees with snow…

The horse sale starts shortly after 10:00. The auction is extremely busy this day with over 120 horses offered for sale, including many Thoroughbreds, some of which are pregnant mares. About half of the horses are sold to the kill buyers present. Bruce Rotz ends up with 13 horses, one of whom is “Open Zipper”, a pregnant Thoroughbred mare with…

The TSB/AWF and Eyes on Animals team with dr Rabitsch arrives in Warsaw to give a training to Road Inspectors from Mazowsze (mazowieckie) region. This is the most numerous WITD inspectorate in Poland – even though a flu virus is keeping a lot of people home, we have about 40 WITD inspectors in the room and a representative of Veterinary Inspection.…

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 a farm in Leśna. We are trimming a very lame cow with an abscess in left hind hoof. The the stable is very humid and hot. We are informing the farmer about the necessity to open windows and a door to have some fresh air in the stable. At least half of the windows should be opened to provide right air flow if the stable has no…

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…