Lairage — the holding period before slaughter — is a critical welfare window where animals experience mixing, handling stress, and deprivation that significantly affects end-of-life welfare.
Lairage welfare is often overlooked as a brief interlude before slaughter, but it can represent hours of welfare-significant experience. Mixing animals from different farm groups causes fighting and injury. Novel environments, noise, and the presence of blood smell cause fear responses. Animals deprived of water (illegal but occurs) are more stressed and harder to handle effectively. Improving lairage conditions through better pen design, prohibition of mixing, and consistent OV presence is achievable and welfare-significant.