Stop the Driving Pain

You have likely seen them on the road or highway — large trucks carrying a cargo of live farmed animals.

You may have caught a glimpse of the animals held inside — a nose poking through, an eye peering out.

You may even have wondered, just for a moment, about these animals — where are they coming from, where are they going, and what are they feeling?

But you likely never imagined that the animals were headed to a far-off state, traveling for hours or days on end without food, water, or rest. You probably didn't picture many of the animals becoming sick or injured or even dying on the way to their final destination.

Yet, that is the grim reality for millions of farmed animals raised as food each year in the United States.

Cruel transport practices and the misery they cause are driven by economics and fueled by a lack of government oversight. Animals pay the price in pain and suffering to provide cheap meat to consumers and to increase meat industry profits.

Investigation Sheds Light on Suffering

In the summer and fall of 2005, Born Free USA (then API) and Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) carried out a landmark investigation into the transport of live farmed animals throughout the United States — uncovering shocking conditions and long days and nights of grueling travel. The investigation documented the transport of live cows within the United States and the transport of pigs from the U.S. to Mexican slaughterhouses.



Protections for transported farmed animals are desperately needed, as revealed in undercover footage and eyewitness testimony gathered by the Born Free USA/CIWF investigation.

Investigators documented animals arriving at and proceeding through auction with broken legs, infected eyes, foaming mouths, and bleeding cuts and sores. Dead and downed animals were also seen at the auctions. In addition, investigators filmed the unloading of "cull sows" (mother pigs from factory farms) destined for slaughter. Many of these pigs had difficulty walking, having spent nearly their entire lives in confinement.



The U.S. has on the books a law, known as the 28-Hour Law, requiring that livestock transported across state lines in "rail carriers, express carriers, or common carriers" be humanely unloaded into pens for food, water, and at least 5 hours of rest every 28 hours. However, this law is rarely, if ever, enforced.

Even if the 28-Hour Law were enforced, it would not be adequate to assure the well-being of transported animals. The 28-Hour Law falls far short of the 9-hour transport/12-hour rest period being proposed in Europe, and is seriously deficient when compared to the 8-hour transport limit being proposed as an international standard by Born Free USA, CIWF, and others.

Interstate Transport



Despite the considerable stress that transport causes, farmed animals are typically moved several times during their lives, often over large distances. It is standard practice for animals, once weaned, to be moved from "growing areas" to "finishing areas" for further fattening, and then be moved again to the slaughter plant.

Pigs often endure journeys of thousands of miles in their brief lives. They are frequently shipped from farrowing operations in North Carolina to nursery or grower/finisher facilities in Iowa, where they are fed to market weights, then moved again to California for slaughter. This unfortunate trend appears to be escalating; the number of hogs crossing state lines increased from 30 million in 1970 to 50 million in 2001.



The toll transport takes on animals is great. Pigs are particularly sensitive to transport stress; many pigs arrive injured or dead at the slaughterhouse. Each year, approximately 80,000 hogs die during the transit process. It has also been estimated that, annually, about 82,000 pigs taken to market in the U.S. arrive "fatigued" — out of breath and unable to get off the truck on their own.

The situation is similar for cattle. For example, in the fall, soon after weaning, beef calves from California to Colorado are transported to the Plains states to graze on cool-season pastures and then on to summer pastures or feedlots. In some cases, calves are sent directly to the feedlot. For about four months at the feedlot, cattle are fed high-energy rations of grain, silage, hay, and/or protein supplements — including the rendered by-products of other animals such as pigs and chickens — before being transported to auctions or directly to the slaughterhouse.



Cattle can become stressed, injured, and exposed to disease during transport and movement through auctions. In the U.S., it is estimated that 1 percent of feedlot cattle die as a consequence of transport stress. One study estimates that for every 1,000 cattle entering feedlots, 12 die.

Nearly all farmed animals are transported to slaughter at some point in their lives; as numerous studies have shown, this is the form of transport accompanied by the most welfare problems. It is tragic to realize that the last journey a farmed animal takes is usually the worst ride of his or her life.