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.
