On Wednesday 7 September, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published five opinions with ideas to improve the welfare of farm animals, including transport time.
The opinions were requested by the European Commission to help it prepare its proposal, due in the second half of 2023, to revise EU legislation on animal welfare. This reform is foreseen in the EU’s ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy (see EUROPE 12995/12).
This series of scientific opinions concerns small ruminants (https://aeur.eu/f/2yx ), equine (https://aeur.eu/f/2yy ), cattle (https://aeur.eu/f/2z0 ), pigs (https://aeur.eu/f/2z1 ) and animals transported in containers (https://aeur.eu/f/2z4 ), including domestic birds (chickens, laying hens, turkeys, etc.) and rabbits.
“Good animal welfare practices not only reduce unnecessary suffering but also help to make animals healthier. This is a key element for the safety of the food chain”, said Guilhem de Seze, EFSA’s Head of Risk Assessment.
EFSA has developed quantitative thresholds for the temperatures that should be maintained in a vehicle as well as minimum space allowances for the animals.
For animals transported in containers, EFSA recommends that the journey duration should be considered as the whole time the animals are kept in the containers. The only way to avoid welfare consequences for day-old chicks is to transport fertilised eggs and hatch them on the farm of destination.
Olga Kikou, from Compassion in World Farming EU, regrets that EFSA’s recommendations are “quite conservative”. Although it states that after 12 hours without food, a chicken’s intestinal cells break down, EFSA still recommends a maximum limit of 12 hours for the travel time of poultry”. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)