Poultry Slaughter Welfare: Technology and Practice

Slaughter methods for poultry — particularly electrical water bath stunning — are a major welfare concern affecting hundreds of millions of birds, with better alternatives available but underutilised.

Key Facts

Over 1 billion chickens are slaughtered annually in the UK; most by water bath electrical stunning
Water bath stunning has variable efficacy — a proportion of birds enter the blade conscious
Controlled Atmosphere Killing (CAK) using low-oxygen or CO2 mixtures renders birds unconscious in the crate
Gas stunning eliminates shackling of live birds, removing a major source of acute welfare harm
Some operators use high-concentration CO2 which is aversive; low-oxygen nitrogen mixtures are more humane

Welfare Considerations

Poultry slaughter is one of the highest-impact welfare improvement opportunities in the food system by number of animals affected. Current water bath stunning systems fail to render a proportion of birds unconscious before killing, meaning they experience the blade conscious. CAK systems using inert gas eliminate this problem and also remove the welfare harm of live shackling. The technology exists and is commercially deployed in higher-welfare operations. Regulatory requirements for CAK adoption, combined with consumer demand for higher-welfare poultry, could rapidly improve slaughter welfare for hundreds of millions of birds annually.

What You Can Do

Support campaigns for mandatory CAK adoption in poultry slaughter
Advocate for regulatory requirements for effective stunning verification
Choose poultry products certified as using higher-welfare slaughter methods
Support research into optimal CAK gas compositions for different poultry species
Engage with retailers about their poultry supplier slaughter welfare requirements