The legal grounds for the appropriate handling of sick and injured animals are set out in the Animal Welfare Act (TierSchG): Section 1 “The purpose of this Act is to protect the life and welfare of animals, based on humanity’s responsibility towards them as fellow creatures. No one may cause pain, suffering or harm to an animal without reasonable cause.”
For a better understanding, the terms marked in bold are explained below:
Well-being: The animal is able to engage in normal behaviour, is healthy and has the opportunity to experience positive emotions. A state of freedom from pain, suffering and harm.
Pain: An unpleasant sensation that may arise, for example, from actual or impending tissue damage. Pain may be short-lived, e.g. due to external factors (beating, fighting, electric fencing), or may persist for longer, e.g. due to injury or illness (e.g. mastitis, hoof disease).*
Distress: An unpleasant sensation, e.g. of a persistent nature: hunger, thirst, exhaustion, heat stress and fear. This also includes insecurity when environmental conditions are unpredictable or uncontrollable for the animal (inability to perform certain behaviours, e.g. comfort-seeking behaviour, isolation, negative experiences with humans, transport).*
Damage: Impairment of physical integrity: externally visible changes, e.g. skin injuries, swelling, organ prolapse, severe emaciation; or internal changes, e.g. to organs, mucous membranes or pathological changes in metabolism.*
* Well-being, pain, suffering and harm occur to varying degrees; they are not a black-and-white issue. They can occur and be assessed on a continuum ranging, for example, from ‘very’ painful to ‘not’ painful, with the boundaries between well-being and negative sensations being fluid. Only a comparative assessment is possible, e.g. how was the animal doing two weeks ago and how is it doing now? Or how is the animal doing compared to other animals in the herd? There is no environmental condition in which pain, suffering and harm cannot occur. To a certain extent, they are part of natural life. It therefore depends on the extent and duration of the restrictions on the animal and how well the animal is able to cope with the restriction.
Furthermore, Section 2(1) of the Animal Welfare Act states: “Anyone who keeps, looks after or is responsible for looking after an animal must feed, care for and house the animal in a manner appropriate to its species and needs…”. The needs of a sick or injured animal may differ from those of healthy animals. Accordingly, different husbandry, feeding and care measures must be implemented.
The Animal Welfare and Livestock Management Ordinance (TierSchNutztV) contains guidance on the frequency of animal checks:
Animal Welfare and Livestock Management Ordinance (TierSchNutztV)
Anyone keeping farm animals must ensure, subject to the provisions of Sections 2 to 6, that
- there are a sufficient number of persons with the necessary knowledge and skills available to feed and care for the animals;
- the animals’ condition is checked at least once a day by direct visual inspection by a person responsible for feeding and care, and any dead animals found are removed;
- where necessary, immediate measures are taken for the treatment, isolation in suitable housing facilities with dry and soft bedding or flooring, or the killing of sick or injured animals, and a veterinary surgeon is consulted;
…
(2) Anyone keeping farm animals must immediately keep records of the results of the daily inspection of the herd, as well as of all medical treatments administered to these animals and of the number of dead animals found during each inspection, in particular the number and cause of animal losses. These records are not required where corresponding records must be kept under other legal provisions. The records referred to in the first sentence must be retained for at least three years from the date of the respective entry and must be presented to the competent authority upon request.
Furthermore, when it comes to determining whether an animal can be transported and slaughtered or must be euthanised, the following legislation applies:
- EU Regulation on the protection of animals during transport and related operations (EC Regulation 1/2005)
- Animal Welfare Transport Regulation
- EU Regulation on the protection of animals at the time of killing (EC Regulation 1099/2009)
- Animal Welfare Slaughter Regulation
The specific regulations are discussed in more detail in the relevant sections below, or links to them are provided.