Late at night we trailed a poultry truck heading east. By the time it got to Meppel it finally stopped at a gas station and we were able to take a closer look and speak to the driver. The transport company was Mantrans and the driver was very polite and open to us. He informed us that there were turkeys on board, destined for a slaughterhouse near Bremen in Germany. The total length of his journey was 5 hours and it took 1 hour to load them. He had placed a semi-opaque tarp along the sides of the truck to protect the turkeys from the cool wind (it was only 10C degrees out). Because of this it made it difficult to see each turkey, but one could see well-enough that they were calm and not overloaded. Overall the conditions were much better than the Belgian-platted chicken truck we saw later this evening (see next inspection).
The Netherlands produces turkeys but does not have any turkey slaughterhouses, and thus all Dutch turkeys are exported for slaughter.
