Livestock Transportation Industry Adapts to Higher Livestock Movements
Farmscape for April 24, 2003 (Episode 1227) A livestock transportation study conducted in Alberta shows the trucking industry is responding well to the challenges posed by increased numbers of livestock movements. The livestock transportation study was spearheaded through the Alberta Farm Animal Care Association to determine how the livestock transportation industry has changed since the completion of a similar 1994 study. The follow-up looked at the entire industry within Alberta in 2002. Association Manager Susan Church says the follow-up has shown there is a far greater number of livestock on our roads today than there were in 1994. Clip-Susan Church-Alberta Farm Animal Care Association The movement of livestock is greatly increased because of our livestock populations. We have exports going to the states. We have a lot of interprovincial movement of live animals and we've been looking at that in Alberta just to get a better handle on the size of the industry. We've determined that there is about 480 loads of livestock on our highway every working day. That's a lot of livestock moving and it's one of the most stressful aspects of an animal's life. You're relocating that animal and that whole relocation process has to be examined from a standpoint of how it affects the quality of the meat, how it affects the overall stress of the animal, how we deal with injuries of the animal, are we putting too many in a truck, are we properly training our truckers, are our trucks properly designed and the list goes on. Church says issues the industry is working on include, things like roll overs, how do we prevent them, what causes them? Speed and fatigue, are we putting too much pressure on drivers? She says we have to consider density of livestock in the trucks and how that ties in with weather and distance and establish protocols for dealing questions such as what to do with livestock when a truck breaks down. For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane. *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council