Results

Community measures regulate the management of holdings that rear chickens for meat production in order to improve animal welfare, particularly for chickens kept on intensive farms.

Even before passage of this important new directive setting down minimum standards for the protection of calves, the use of veal crates for rearing calves had already been illegal in the EU (since 2006). The new directive, however, passed on December 18, 2008, fleshed out older one, establishing new welfare minimums under which veal could be raised. According to the new directive, veal calves may, when very young, be kept in individual pens, but must be able to turn around and to see and touch other calves through perforated walls. Once they are more than eight weeks old, veal calves must be reared in groups. To guard against the nutrient-deficient diet veal calves have long been fed on factory farms—and continue to be fed on farms in the United States—European calves must, at least twice a day, be fed a diet that meets basic health requirements to ensure their bodies develop normally.

This directive reflects the EU's concern for a need to establish common minimum standards for the protection of animals at the time of slaughter or killing in order to ensure rational development of production and to facilitate the completion of the internal market in animals and animal products. The directive also states that at the time of slaughter or killing animals should be spared any avoidable pain or suffering.