The final journey of farm animals to slaughter involves hours or days of transport under conditions causing fear, injury, and death — a welfare crisis that represents the last chapter of lives already often characterized by suffering.
Transport to slaughter subjects farm animals to a concentration of welfare harms: crowding with unfamiliar animals causing aggression, loading and unloading causing fear and injury, temperature extremes, food and water deprivation, and the unfamiliar stimuli of vehicles and facilities. Animals arriving at slaughter plants are often already injured or in physiological distress. The welfare improvements possible in this final phase — shorter journeys, better handling, effective stunning — are technically feasible but require regulatory will and industry investment.