Transporting Bunny

This blog post has been a fair while in the writing and, truth be told, I could probably put off publishing it for a fair while yet as I wait for various things to happen. I'm publishing it, however, in the hope that my fantastic readers will have their usual input and will maybe be able to suggest things which I haven't thought of.

Think of this as a kind of Crowd-Sourced emirgration </ geekJoke> </ noReally>

Anyway, I have a bunny rabbit. She is called Sassy. And I am planning on taking Sassy with me to Bulgaria so she can have a fantastically large run (including a secure outdoor area) and I can have some company.

Sassy the Rabbit

The challenge is getting her there. This is really tightly coupled to the decision around the route. The three routes I am considering are all vastly different when it comes to considering taking pets with you. The first one (through Romania) is the simplest as the entire route goes through the EU. My research has discovered that you can transport Rabbits throughout the EU without any quarantine and this is a really good clear post from someone else who has researched like me. As they say on that link, I'd recommend checking with your vet yourself before taking my word for it.

The second route (through Italy and Greece) is also entirely through the EU however it has the added problem of a long over night ferry journey. This should be OK however, from my research again, ferry companies demand that animals are left in vehicles, and you are generally not allowed to stay in the vehicles. To contradict myself for a minute, I have heard from other people doing this route that if you are in a camper van (and we will be) they put you on the deck and you are allowed to sleep in them over night. So maybe that wouldn't be such a dreadful thing after all.

A (not as good as Julian) camper on the deck of a ferry

Finally the route through Serbia. This looks like the most complicated off all for transporting the rabbit as Serbia is not part of the EU (lucky bastards) and there is no clear knowledge of whether I would be OK to traverse their country with a rabbit in my car. My research into this is still ongoing and it has been such a run around that I thought I'd detail it a little bit here.

The first site I started at (and if you google it'll be the first you do too) is this really clear page on the DeFRA website. At the bottom it tells you to click a link to contact the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) which takes you to another page on their site listing the phone number 01245 358383. When you ring this you get a BT recorded message saying that the number has been changed to 01284 778150. When you ring THIS number you get an automated message saying to ring 01228 403600 and when you ring THIS message you go through a menu system and get told to email petexport.carlisle@ahvla.gsi.gov.uk and this email bounces.

You can thank me later for having gone through that process for you.

They may as well have used one of these

Having seen that the email bounced I decided to call the last number (01228 403600) back and ignore the "if it is not an emergency email..." part of the message. I got pretty much straight through to a very helpful operator and opened the conversation with "Hi, I am looking at transporting a rabbit through Serbia". My colleague sat next to me thought this was very funny indeed; I wonder what odd opening gambits they get on that number.

Her advice was simple and three-fold

1. Call Bulgarian embassy about importing a pet
2. Call the Ferry Services I would be using about transporting pets
3. Call the embassy for each country I am crossing (not just the Serbian one)

I gathered together a list of the countries I would be driving through (for the Serbian route it is: France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria) and found contact details for each one. As most are in the EU I decided to start with Serbia and tried to get through to their consular division. There was no answer. I found an email address on their website (consular@serbianembassy.org.uk) and sent the following email:

Hi there,

I hope you can help.

I am emigrating to Bulgaria early next year and am in the process of planning my route. I will be driving across Europe with a car with a trailer, and also a camper van. Inside the camper van I am planning on bring my pet rabbit. One of the routes I am considering is to come down through Serbia.

I have done some research on your website, having been unable to get through on the phone, and have found the following page which suggests that I need to have some documentation to be allowed to transport a rabbit through your country.

http://www.upravacarina.rs/en/Passengers/Pages/Passengers.aspx

Please could you let me know what this documentation is so I can arrange it in plenty of time.

My other question is more general. What requirements do you have for vehicle insurance (including for the trailer) and are there any other documents which I need to arrange?

Finally, I am a collector of fine whisky and will have, boxed and sealed, about 100 bottles with me. Will this present a problem at the border?

I look forward to your reply and thank you for your attention.

Regards

In contrast to the Bulgarian embassy when I contacted them for information about the house in the woods that I loved so much, I have not had a swift reply (this email was sent on 21st August and I have not yet had even an acknowledgment) so I still do not have the answer to how easy it is to transport a rabbit across Serbia.

I am happy that EU countries will be OK with me taking Sassy through their borders but still have to contact the Bulgarian embassy about importing her. I will probably get a pet passport anyway when I get her checked by the VET in the run up to leaving.

This blog post is long enough now so I will leave it there. I still have a lot of stuff to write about though so there will be a follow up.