When the truck company calls to confirm, clarify the conditions for your animals
deterioration of its condition. Animal welfare will always be a vet’s highest consideration. If transport is not allowable, the options are either further treatment or euthanasia on-farm.
Vets are sometimes in a difficult position in cases like this. Often, animals are being culled from herds and sent away because whatever ails them has been unresponsive to treatment and a farmer would rather collect a works payment than have to dig a hole.
But welfare is the primary concern, above convenience, economics, or the best intentions and wishes of an animal owner. An animal going down in a truck during transport is in trouble, particularly if there are others in its pen and they can’t avoid trampling it. It’s also difficult to get a large, recumbent beast out of a truck without causing more distress.
There’s also the futility of the situation. If the final destination is the works, an injured or sick animal will be euthanised when discovered. Then, animal welfare questions will be asked because all animals going to the works are assessed by a vet when they arrive.
Contact with the sides of a pen is inevitable when in transit so any sort of skin issue – healed eczema scars, abscesses, etc – can be rubbed until bleeding, which is also unacceptable.
Vets use their professional judgement and experience to determine the fitness of any animal to travel and may subject them to a variety of tests, such as their ability to walk, run or turn (your facilities may preclude an extensive test in some circumstance). A close or internal physical examination may be required to inform their decision. A vet will also ask about the duration of any infirmity and, if they have not treated it themselves, what treatment has been previously provided. The vet needs to assure themselves that an animal will not deteriorate during hours of standing on a moving truck, and that an animal will be able to comfortably negotiate ramps at either end of the journey. be loaded. An animal stipulated to be on its own in a pen, for instance, will reduce the truck’s potential total load. The usual ‘direct to slaughter’ requirement will also affect how the transport provider plans its pick-ups, since a certified animal will need to be collected last, before the truck goes directly to a works site.
Animals travelling with Veterinary Certificates must not be transported to arrive on a day a works site is not operating. Make sure you or your agent informs the works that an animal is coming with a certificate.
The paperwork states it is for animals going to slaughter but it should be used for all transportation.
If transport is delayed beyond the expiry date of the certificate, your vet will need to examine the animal again to recertify it for transport. If it’s only a matter of a couple of days, check with your vet as in some circumstances they can extend the expiry by up to three days.
Do not assume an automatic extension. A vet must always be satisfied that the condition for which they have certified an animal will not deteriorate within the timeframe of the certificate.
The certifying vet will be contacted by Ministry for Primary Industries Verification Services (MPI VS) vets at the works if an animal arrives in an unacceptable state.
The certificate has a place for feedback on the state of welfare of an animal when it reaches the works. This will confirm the decisions made by a certifying vet or vets on the animals they have seen and assessed.