On-farm and in-transit livestock mortality rates are important welfare outcome indicators that reveal the overall welfare quality of farming systems when properly collected and analysed.
Livestock mortality rates are among the most important welfare outcome indicators because deaths represent the endpoint of welfare failures — pain, disease, injury, or stress that was not detected or addressed in time. High mortality rates on individual farms or across sectors signal systemic welfare problems requiring root cause analysis and intervention. The challenge is that mortality data is often not consistently collected, not publicly available, and not benchmarked in ways that drive improvement. Making mortality data a standard, transparent, and publicly reported metric in farm assurance and industry supply chain management would drive significant improvement in welfare standards across the industry.