During one of our training courses of Belgian highway police, we stopped a truck transporting Dutch broilers to slaughter and witnessed a number that were injured. The head of one bird was crushed from the drawer being shut above, several wings were caught between the metal bars and the upper floor and the humidity inside the truck was high. More attention for these risks during catching as well as improvements in the design can reduce injuries from transport. Meyn the manufacturer of the transport container invited EOA to review the design and discuss the possible solutions. For this reason we met with the manufacturers of the transport containers today. Upon our suggestion last year, this company had already added access doors to the containers, so that one can now access the birds during transport to provide care if needed. The meeting resulted in 2 changes for the next generation containers, namely provide a larger gap to avoid heads getting trapped and a solution to improve air circulation and avoid humidity build-up where the birds are. We are very pleased with the openness and willingness to make further changes and are confident these will be put into place this coming year. We will stay on top of things!
