You may pass them on the motorway without a second thought: vehicles filled with farmed animals. But for the animals inside, the journey from farm to slaughterhouse is one of the most distressing experiences in their short lives. Live animal transport is seldom spoken about or seen - but we are trying to change that.

Many of us are aware of the suffering that takes place inside the factory farms that animals are raised on. We’re also aware that slaughterhouses or ‘abattoirs’ where animals are killed are places of suffering. But the process of moving animals from their place of life to their place of death - and the distress involved - is something that most people don’t think about.

What is live animal transport?

Live animal transport is the process of moving animals from one location to another, most commonly to get them to the slaughterhouse. Almost all animals farmed for food will experience this towards the end of their lives.

When policymakers and advocates are talking about live animal transport, it can be confusing. Would a ban on live animal transport prevent you from traveling with your furry or feathered friend? The answer is no.

Live animal transport refers specifically to moving animals for business purposes. The largest sector participating in live animal transport is animal agriculture and the majority of animals being moved are headed to slaughter.

How does animal transport work?

There’s no one way of transporting animals. Planes, trains, boats, and automobiles can all be used to transport animals.

Though there are many ways to move animals from place to place, they all share something in common: all of them are very stressful for the passengers.

Are animals transported live across countries?

Live animal export (i.e. moving animals between countries) is a particularly contentious issue. Animals like chickens, cows, pigs, sheep, and horses are moved to different regions by road, rail, sea, and air.

England and Wales have taken steps to ban the live export of farmed animals for fattening and slaughter - but still allow transport within the country. Scotland has failed to keep up with its neighbours and still allows both internal transportation and export.

King Charles announced in his 2023 king’s speech the Animal Welfare (Live Exports) Bill, which banned the live export of farmed animals.

How long are animals transported?

In standard UK transportation vehicles, journey times are restricted to a maximum of eight hours. However, in vehicles with additional requirements, journey times can be even longer. In practice, this means animals can be in transit for well over eight hours, sometimes in extreme temperatures.

Though not applicable to the entire UK, Wales and England have additional maximums depending on the animal. For example, broiler chickens can only be transported for four hours, excluding the often deadly time it takes to on and offboard them.

What are the standards required by legislation in the UK?

As the United Kingdom is made up of several nations – England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland – standards can differ across borders. However, certain requirements apply to all farmers, regardless of where in the UK they’re located.

Some of the most significant requirements for live animal transport are that animals must be unboarded and given a rest. The length of time before that rest differs per species. There is also a requirement for journey logs, which are supposed to document how many animals are being transported, and how long their journey is.

How do animals get to slaughterhouses?

Farm animals do not spend their lives at slaughterhouses, which is why they are often transported to slaughter facilities.

They are moved using just about every form of transportation available, including trucks, trains, and boats.

What are the main challenges of transporting animals?

Transporting live animals presents a major welfare issue, as there is no way to eliminate the stress animals endure as part of the experience. On top of being locked into an often overcrowded pen on wheels, they often lack access to food, water, and clean bedding.

One of the only welfare requirements of British law is that the animals are unloaded and provided a rest and the length of time before that rest differs per species. However, even this bare minimum break is often skipped by transporters.

When is it not recommended to transport animals?

Animals who are pregnant, injured, or ill should not be transported, as they are more likely to be trampled or have their conditions aggravated during the process. Despite these guidelines, animals falling into these categories are still often transported.

Why is live animal transport bad?

As with all elements of farming animals, when welfare standards are not carefully maintained, animals suffer unnecessarily. For this reason, transporting animals comes with a variety of ethical concerns.

Environmental impact

Live transport does release greenhouse gas emissions. However, if you’re looking to buy meat locally as a means of solving climate change, you’re not doing as much as you think.

That’s because transport alone, even internationally, accounts for a small portion of the greenhouse gas emissions created from the food we eat. For example, in the case of beef, transport usually accounts for less than 1% of overall emissions. Most of the emissions from animal agriculture are due to the farming itself.

Ethical concerns

Investigators have documented numerous welfare and regulation violations on live transport vehicles. Among them are journey logs that are not filled out all the way or contain false information, inadequate headspace, overcrowding, transporting unfit animals, and no food or water sources.

Alternative methods

There are two alternatives to live animal transport:

1. ensuring all animals are slaughtered closer to where they live and that only carcasses are transported or
2. shifting toward alternative forms of protein so that animals no longer need to be slaughtered.

However, the sounds and smells of slaughter cause fear. Moving slaughterhouses closer to farms where animals spend their lives would be a significant setback for animal welfare, as they would spend their entire lives surrounded by the sights, smells, and sounds of death.

Another option, which would stand to reduce animal suffering much more, is to simply stop consuming as much meat. If we eat less meat, fewer animals will be slaughtered.

Historical background

At live transport’s height in the late 1900s, more than 2.5 million animals were transported (while alive) from the UK to be fattened up and killed in Europe. More recently, those numbers have dropped significantly and sit around a few thousand.

While numbers are thankfully in decline, the export trade in young calves from Northern Ireland continues. Many of these poor baby cows experience distressing travel for days before reaching their destination - and death.

It’s a sad reality that, for now, the global trade in transporting animals continues. But there is some good news: in the past two years, the UK Government has made progress in protecting animals during live transport, with King Charles announcing a live export ban during his king’s speech.

However, the protections do not cover Northern Ireland, nor do they cover all species of farmed animals. Poultry (i.e. chickens, ducks, and other birds) exports will continue, as will exports for breeding purposes. This is a major loophole, as the UK exports tens of millions of chicks a year.

More positively, in 2022, the UK Government announced new welfare standards for farmed animal transport, including shorter journey times, more headroom, and stricter rules on animals being moved in extreme temperatures.

Economic implications

While analysis of Australian live animal export suggests that the cost of meat would drop were live transport to end, the upfront costs are one factor holding producers back. In order to switch to transporting meat, vehicles would need to be fitted with the freezers necessary to keep the meat fresh.

Another economic driver of live export is the demand for fresh meat. Many butchers will pay a premium for animals who were slaughtered locally due to consumer desire for ‘local’ meat.

Health concerns

Like factory farms, live transport provides the perfect environment for the spread of disease, some of which are zoonotic (can be spread to humans). If the disease is able to make the jump from the animals to people, it can then mutate to become antibiotic-resistant.

Researchers caution that many of the countries that receive shipments of live animals don’t necessarily have the resources necessary to handle and prevent the spread of new diseases. While the UK does require health certificates for imported livestock, the risk of disease spread cannot be fully eradicated.

Frequently asked questions about transporting live animals

How do animals suffer on transports?

• Being loaded onto the vehicles can be extremely stressful for animals. The process of herding them - or physically putting them into transportation crates - can be noisy, hectic, and overwhelming.
• If animals are not handled carefully, they run the risk of getting hurt. If the vehicle itself is poorly set up, with animals crammed close together, there is even more risk of illness and injury during transit.
• Free space is often so limited on these trucks that animals may trample each other in search of it, resulting in serious injury or even death - before even making it to slaughter.
• Transportation is an unnerving experience for animals who may have spent their lives in sheds with little room to move, isolated from natural sunlight and the outside world. During transit, animals are for the first time subjected to new and strange sights, smells, noises, and movement. This can be stress-inducing.
• The conditions of the journey can negatively impact the animals. Exposure to extreme weather and temperatures; lack of sufficient ventilation; inadequate space in the vehicle; and long periods without access to water, food, and rest can all amount to extreme distress.

Why is live transport still happening?

Though King Charles announced a ban on live exports in 2023, live transports within the UK still happen. The practice persists because animals are not raised at slaughterhouses, and so are moved there for slaughter.

What progress is happening at the EU level?

Though there’s still a long way to go to eliminate live transport, in January 2023, Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, indicated that working on the issue was a “high priority” for government entities reviewing the EU’s animal welfare legislation.

Later the same year, King Charles announced in his king’s speech that the UK would be banning live exports of farm animals.

Hope for the future

While the welfare issues of live animal transport are yet to be fully resolved, organisations and activists are uniting to end the suffering.

While we’re celebrating the King’s announcement, we are still working toward a world where animals do not suffer, either through live transport or poor conditions on factory farms.

What you can do

The biggest thing each of us can do to fight this abuse is to leave animals off our plates. The less demand for meat, the less cause for the cruel process of transporting animals to slaughter.