Poultry Catching and Handling: Welfare at the End of the Production Cycle

The catching and handling of broiler chickens before transport to slaughter is one of the highest-density welfare events in poultry production, causing fractures, dislocations, and death in millions of birds annually — and mechanical alternatives can dramatically reduce this harm.

Key Facts

Manual catching of broilers involves workers grabbing chickens by their legs and carrying multiple birds inverted by one hand — a method associated with wing fractures, dislocations, and haemorrhage
An estimated 4-9% of broilers sustain injuries during catching and transport that are detectable at slaughter line inspection
Caught broilers may be held inverted for extended periods during transport crating, causing pain and cardiovascular stress
Mechanical catching machines — large conveyor systems that sweep through the flock — can catch at a rate of 8,000+ birds per hour with lower injury rates than manual catching when well-calibrated
Catching at night reduces flight and panic responses, significantly reducing injuries compared to daytime catching
Catching and transport are the final welfare events in the broiler's life — poor handling at this stage adds suffering to animals already experiencing the stress of transport to slaughter
The Netherlands and some other European countries have introduced catching welfare monitoring systems that track injury rates and require improvement where rates exceed thresholds

Welfare Considerations

Poultry catching represents a welfare failure at scale — millions of birds sustaining fractures and injuries in the final hours of their lives, in an industry where slaughter inspection data provides a direct quality indicator that is rarely used to drive improvement. The combination of time pressure, low-wage labour, and dark, crowded sheds creates conditions where welfare during catching is rarely prioritised. Mechanical catching machines offer both a welfare improvement and a labour solution in many contexts, and their wider adoption alongside catching welfare monitoring would deliver significant immediate welfare gains for billions of birds annually.

What You Can Do

Support campaigns for mechanical catching machine adoption in commercial poultry production
Advocate for catching injury data from slaughter line inspection to be publicly reported and used to drive supplier improvement
Choose poultry from producers certified under schemes that include catching and transport welfare requirements
Support regulatory requirements for night-time catching as a minimum welfare standard in commercial broiler production
Ask retailers about their suppliers' catching protocols and injury rates when evaluating welfare credentials
Donate to farm animal welfare organisations that include poultry catching welfare in their advocacy programs
Learn about the welfare dimensions of the entire poultry production chain — including catching — when making food choices