Eyes on Animals -

Markets and collecting stations

Farm animals are often sold and bought at livestock markets, or collected at stations where larger trucks come to pick them up later to transport them further. These places can be very stressful for animals, and are also unfortunately a great place for diseases to spread. Animals are brought in from many different places, unloaded from the truck, often weighed one at a time, and then rushed towards different pens where they are forced to wait for hours, sometimes without water, feed or bedding. Animals that were raised together, and even mothers and their offspring, can be separated. The animals are then reloaded onto new trucks with unfamiliar animals, which can cause fighting, and head to a new destination. Eyes on Animals regularly conducts unannounced visits of livestock markets and collecting stations in the Netherlands and Belgium. We check on conditions of the unloading equipment and pens and make sure that unfit animals are given a quiet area to rest, or if serious, immediately euthanized. We are in dialogue with the managers about providing water and bedding for the animals, milking females in lactation, and reducing any rough handling or other unnecessary causes of animal suffering.