The end-of-lay phase for commercial hens involves catching, crating, and transporting birds for slaughter — a process causing significant acute welfare harm that receives minimal attention relative to farming conditions.
The final hours of a laying hen's life concentrate welfare harms: rough mechanical handling by catch teams working at speed, cramped transportation crates, and slaughter processes of variable welfare quality. Hens that have spent their lives in wire cages face their worst welfare experience at the very end. The combination of physical injury from catching, transport stress, and slaughter represents an end-of-life welfare failure that is largely invisible to consumers who focus on farming conditions.