Sheep welfare during transport

Transport can be a stressful experience for animals, and that means ethical and economic consequences. OIE guidelines and the EU new regulation aim at preventing inadequate conditions of transport. making operators fully responsible of animal welfare and requiring specific certificates of competence. In comparison with other farmed species, relatively few papers have been published on sheep transport. This could be due to lower economic significance and to apparently minor impact of poor transport on sheep meat quality. However, in the last decades several researches were produced on this subject, pointing a number of welfare parameters of be clinic. physiopathologic. environmental and inspective nature. In this review different potential stressor agents have been evaluated: animal handling (particularly loading and unloading), stocking density, travel duration, rest times, environmental conditions and personnel skills. Further studies could be useful to improve knowledge about basic welfare parameters regarding this species, such as rnicroclimate conditions on transport means (mostly about different standards for shorn or unshorn sheep) and actual effects on meat quality.