Summary

Appropriate treatment of sick or injured livestock is essential to ensuring the health and welfare of cattle and sheep being exported by sea.

Under current regulations, there must be at least one LiveCorp Accredited Stockperson or Australian Government Accredited Veterinarian (AAV) on every voyage, responsible for overseeing the care of the animals.

A literature review was conducted to determine the most common shipboard illnesses and diseases for cattle and sheep, and to identify current best practice medicines and treatments. This information was used to develop recommendations about the most appropriate animal health equipment and medications to carry on livestock export ships.

Objectives

The aim of this project was to review the current knowledge of shipboard diseases and the medications used for their treatment, so recommendations could be made during future updates of the minimum veterinary medicines and equipment required by the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock (ASEL).

Additionally, it aimed to provide recommendations for information to be included in guidelines and/or reference material to ensure shipboard stockpersons and veterinarians have access to best practice knowledge that is operationally useful at sea to improve animal health management.

Key findings

• Animal health monitoring could be improved with the introduction of clear definitions of animal health syndromes and groups of animals.

• The inclusion of animal-days-at-risk should be considered for calculating animal health and welfare performance indicators, to monitor or regulate the livestock export industry and to determine areas of greater systematic risk.

• Animal health risk assessments and medication plans should be developed for each voyage, and a standards and guidelines approach applied to the ASEL requirements for shipboard provisions of equipment and medications.

Benefits to industry

Providing exporters, veterinarians and stock handlers with the latest information and most appropriate medicines to identify illnesses and treat cattle and sheep on livestock export ships will ensure the best animal welfare outcomes are maintained at all times.

Future research and recommendations

The following recommendations are made:

• The syndromes which are used to describe and report animal health issues during the livestock export process require clear definitions that are agreed upon by government and industry.

• The terms used to describe groups of animals in the livestock export process require clear definitions that are agreed upon by government and industry.

• Animal-days-at-risk should be used by industry and government when calculating animal health and welfare performance indicators to monitor or regulate the livestock export industry. Areas of greater systematic risk in the livestock export process should be determined by government and/or industry, through comparing the prevalence of specific animal health issues within the livestock export industry with other Australian land-based production systems.

• An export supply chain medication plan should be incorporated into the exporter’s business process. This should contain information on antimicrobial stewardship, provide directions for selecting the most appropriate medications and information on the use of medications within their export supply chain.

• A Consignment Animal Health Assessment process (CAHA) should be conducted for each consignment at the time the exporter is developing the Standard Export Plan (SEP) into a Consignment Specific Export Plan (CSEP).

• Minimum provisions of medications for sea export voyages with cattle and sheep are recommended for consideration as standards for the provision of animal health medications by the ASEL Technical Advisory Committee.

• The department should provide clear guidelines to the industry on how to meet Australia’s importing requirements for diagnostic samples obtained from Australian livestock during sea transport to the importing country.

• Following an update of ASEL requirements, complementary guidelines should be developed to help exporters in meeting these requirements by assisting them in determining the most appropriate shipboard equipment and medications to load based on the assessed animal health risks for each voyage.

This project was funded by the Livestock Export Program (LEP), a collaboration between Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) and the Australian Livestock Export Corporation Limited (LiveCorp).