We demand an end for cruel live transports by road and sea

Young Animals

Long-Distance transports of unweaned calves and lambs

To produce milk, a cow must give birth to a calf every year. The same goes for goats and sheep. The problem is that male offspring, like many females, are seen as a by-product of the dairy industry. There is only a demand for calves in countries where they are fattened for veal or for export.

Calves are separated from their mothers immediately after birth. A few days later, they are transported for the first time in their lives. Lambs are taken to collection centres at the age of one week and calves at around ten days. From the collection points, the calves are transported to the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain for fattening from the age of 14 days. Lambs are mainly sent to Italy and Greece for slaughter. When animals are this young, they are very susceptible to disease and transport can quickly become an ordeal.

Problems during the transport of unweaned calves and lambs

Animal welfare related issues during the transport of these very young animals are:

  • transport during a critical life phase of these calves (the so-called immunological gap)
  • transport via several assembly centers
  • lack of food provision for many hours or days

According to the EU Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport, unweaned animals are allowed to be transported for 19 hours – provided they can be provided with food in the transport vehicle after nine hours. This is not the case. There are no manual or electronic drinking devices that are suitable to provide unweaned calves or lambs with milk or milk substitutes on the transport vehicles. Consequently, the animals suffer from hunger and thirst and some even die during transport.

What we are doing

Since 2014 our teams have been working for unweaned animals. Together with the police and veterinary authorities, we inspected countless calf- and lamb transports. We followed them undercover to see if unweaned animals were being unloaded, fed, and rested at the control points. Unfortunately, rest periods were often ignored. We published our observations, and we filed numerous complaints. We present the results of our investigation work to decision-makers in ministries, European authorities and politics and ask them to act.

We are opposed to transports of unweaned calves and lambs for more than four hours.

Our work over many years has been partly successful. In Germany, unweaned calves must be at least 28 days old to be fit for transport. A minimum age of five weeks has now also been included in the EU Commission's proposal for the revision of transport regulation 1/2005 which was published in December 2023. The requirements for feeding equipment in vehicles transporting unweaned animals are high for journeys of more than nine hours. However, as long as long journeys for unweaned animals are allowed, we are lobbying for a maximum journey time of four hours for unweaned calves and lambs. Together with our umbrella organisation, the Eurogroup for Animals, we will continue to pressure politicians in order to achieve improvements for the animals.

Investigations