The final hours of broiler and layer hen life — an often-overlooked welfare priority
The pre-slaughter period — catching, crating, transport, lairage, and shackling — represents a concentrated welfare risk for poultry. Birds that have experienced relatively good conditions during grow-out can experience significant suffering in their final hours. Catching injuries, thermal stress during transport, prolonged feed and water withdrawal, and shackling of conscious birds are the major welfare issues.
Manual catching of broilers typically involves grabbing birds by one or two legs and carrying them head-down to crates. This causes acute pain from leg and joint stress. Catching in darkness reduces panic responses. Well-trained catchers using two-leg carry and careful handling significantly reduce injury rates. Mechanical harvesting machines can be welfare-positive if properly calibrated but can cause crushing injuries if settings are wrong.
Broilers are transported in stacked containers on open trucks. Summer heat and humidity create thermal stress that can cause mass mortality. EU transport regulations limit journey times and require ventilation, but enforcement varies. Winter transport creates cold stress in light-feathered broilers. Pre-catching feed withdrawal of 8-12 hours is standard to reduce gut contamination at slaughter; longer withdrawal causes welfare harm without significant benefit.
Shackling of conscious birds for slaughter — suspending birds by the legs before electrical water bath stunning — causes significant pain and distress. Multi-phase gas stunning (CAS) before shackling is the welfare-positive alternative: birds are rendered unconscious in their transport containers before any hanging. Leading UK retailers have committed to CAS or equivalent high-welfare stunning systems. The EU's slaughter regulation is under revision to strengthen pre-slaughter welfare requirements.