The catching and crating of broiler chickens before transport to slaughter is one of the most stressful and injury-prone phases of the production cycle; mechanised catching offers welfare improvements over manual methods.
The catching phase concentrates multiple welfare insults: physical handling stress, injury risk, and the disruption of established social groups in unfamiliar light and temperature conditions. Birds frequently struggle and vocalise during manual catching. While mechanical catching reduces physical contact, it introduces different handling dynamics. Either approach benefits from workforce training, monitoring, and welfare outcome measurement.