One of our teams is on the Turkish side of the EU/TR border and inspected 15 livestock trucks today transporting live bovines from EU member states into Turkey. The majority of the animals appear to be in a suitable condition. However on one of the trucks we discover two new-born calves. They were born on the truck during the journey from German.
This should never have happened and causes significant stress for pregnant animals. The controls of the gestation period at the place of departure were incompetent. Special attention should be given to the insemination date of heifers that are loaded for such long journeys as the EU law forbids the transport of animals that are more than 90% into their gestation. The two mothers and their calves continued the journey into Turkey after they had been given just a 3 hour rest at the small primitive stables in Kapikule.
The waiting times at the Turkish side of the border are lower than last time. But nerveless once the animals pass through the waiting line at the border and enter Turkey they still have to wait on average another 5 more hours to get the entire import document. At least the lorries are parked in different places where they have the possibility to manually water the animals on the lorry, since just the automatic watering system inside the lorries is not enough to sufficiently and adequately water all the bovines loaded. Some companies that are transporting bulls destined for slaughter are also unloading the animals for 3 to 5 hours, at a small primitive stable near the border.
