RECENTLY Tim Metcalfe wrote about the cruel trade of live animal exports.

Each spring, here in this country, many young lambs are born.

Just a few months later, thousands of sheep and lambs are sent on lengthy journeys to continental abattoirs.

Packed into overcrowded trucks, lambs and sheep are given neither food nor water, even during journeys of 30 hours or more.

Many animals die from heat exhaustion and dehydration.

Many die as result of being crammed into huge trucks, resulting in death from being trampled on.

There is a simple solution.

Animals should be slaughtered as near as possible to the farm where they are reared.

The meat can then be transported through Europe.

Recently UK veterinary surgeons and a few charities have branded ritual slaughter of cattle, lambs and chickens as unacceptable.

The practice demanded by Jewish and Muslim faiths does not stun the creatures before the throat is slit.

Animals will feel the cut in the neck for about six seconds.

PAM TREADWELL Dodgson Road Cowley Oxford