Pig transportation involves multiple sequential stressors from farm to slaughter, with pre-loading management, vehicle design, journey conditions, and driver behaviour all influencing welfare outcomes.
Pig transport welfare reflects cumulative stressor architecture: loading, mixing with strangers, the vehicle environment, journey duration, and unloading at the slaughter plant all interact to determine total welfare impact. Each stressor compounds the others -- a pig that arrives at the loading ramp already stressed from poor pre-handling management is more reactive to mixing, more vulnerable to heat, and more difficult to unload humanely. Reducing total transport time, maintaining social groups during loading, providing appropriate ventilation, and training drivers in low-stress animal handling are the primary welfare interventions. Some slaughterhouses have implemented on-site finishing accommodation to reduce journey time -- the most welfare-positive structural change available.