Animal welfare: Transport - Guidance on the rules
Guidance on the rules
Summary
A summary of the main requirements of the Regulation is available.
Main guidance
Guidance on The Welfare of Animals During Transport Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 (PDF 312 KB) on the protection of animals during transport.
This is a living document that will develop in light of experience implementing the Regulation.
Technical and detailed annexes
Part 2 of the guidance (which is referred to in the main guidance) contains technical and detailed annexes exploring in more depth some of the requirements of the Regulations. These are available below:
Fitness to travel
- Guidance Fitness to Travel (2A) (PDF 113 KB)
Vehicle specifications
- Livestock (2B) (PDF 46 KB)
- Horses and ponies (2C) (PDF 44 KB)
- Poultry (2D) (PDF 36 KB)
- Other vertebrate animals (2E) (PDF 36 KB)
- Navigation system (2F) (PDF 38 KB)
Transporting animals by air or sea
- Transporting animals by air (2G) (PDF 51 KB)
- Shipping farm livestock and horses in containers (2H) (PDF 60 KB)
- Animal shipments on Roll-on Roll-off vessels (2I) (PDF 61 KB)
- Shipping farm livestock and horses on livestock vessels (2J) (PDF 57 KB)
Other annexes
- Technical rules for control posts (2K) (PDF 32 KB)
- Training and competence requirements (2L) (PDF 44 KB)
- Journey logs (2M) (PDF 57 KB) including a worked example (PDF 2.2 MB. Please note this is a large file)
Enforcement of the welfare during transport rules
Serious or repeat infringements of welfare of animals in transport rules committed on or after 1 May 2008 may lead to Animal Health taking regulatory action in Great Britain against the responsible transporters or organisers under a new enforcement policy.
This policy sets out the principles under which regulatory action may be taken against transporters who are found to be in breach of Regulation 1/2005 and the penalties which may be imposed. It also sets out the systems that will be used to monitor repeat and serious infringements and for dealing with infringements by transporters from other EU Member States or third countries.
A summary of the provisions covered by the new policy are as follows:
- Animal Health will regularly monitor records of infringements by transporters.
- Warnings will be issued that future infringements may result in regulatory action being taken against transporters when they accrue a conviction, Home Office Simple Caution or three Statutory Notices or written warnings within any rolling two year period.
- Any non return or incomplete return by any organiser or transporter of five Journey Logs will lead to further Journey Logs not being issued if the outstanding Journey Logs are not returned within 21 days of a warning letter
- A breach of any Statutory Notice will automatically trigger regulatory action.
- Immediate regulatory action will be taken following serious welfare in transport cases.
- regulatory action is subject to the appeal procedure as set out in the Welfare of Animals (Transport) (England) Order 2006.
The document can be found below.
We welcome feedback on the guidance to improve later versions. Please send any comments to: aw-transport@defra.gsi.gov.uk
- EU welfare in transport regulation homepage
- Vehicle inspection and approval scheme
- Transporter documentation
- Training and competence certification
- Publicity
Page last modified:
November 11, 2008

