Catching and loading broiler chickens for transport to slaughter is a major but often invisible source of acute welfare harm. Mechanical catching systems and training reduce injury and stress.
Catching and transport represent concentrated welfare harms that occur at the end of every broiler chicken's life. The acute fear of being grabbed, inverted, and confined affects every individual bird. Injuries from rough catching — broken bones, dislocations — cause pain during the remaining hours before slaughter. Transport in extreme temperatures causes suffering and death from heat stroke or cold stress. These end-of-life welfare failures are not a small footnote — they are the final experience of tens of billions of animals annually. Mechanical catching systems, training programs, and temperature-controlled transport offer meaningful welfare improvements.