End-of-life decisions in agriculture — including culling of non-productive animals, euthanasia of injured individuals, and slaughter of spent breeding animals — involve welfare challenges often more acute than those in productive life.
The end of productive life is a welfare-critical period in agriculture that receives insufficient attention compared to production-phase welfare. Spent animals are economically devalued, which drives lower standards in transport, handling, and slaughter. Breeding animals accumulate health problems over productive lives that become welfare emergencies at end of life. In-ovo sexing represents a genuine technology solution for day-old chick culling. Improved end-of-life protocols, on-farm euthanasia accessibility, and welfare standards for spent animal transport would address avoidable suffering affecting hundreds of millions of animals annually.