Farmed Broiler Welfare at Slaughter: Stunning and Handling

The final hours of broiler chickens involve catching, crating, transport, and stunning — each a potential source of significant welfare harm depending on facility standards and practices.

Key Facts

Around 70 billion broiler chickens are slaughtered globally each year
Catching crews manually collect birds at night, causing wing fractures and bruising in 20-30% of birds
Transport without food or water lasts up to 12 hours in some countries causing dehydration and stress
Water-bath stunning requires birds to be shackled inverted — causing acute pain and distress
Controlled atmosphere stunning using inert gas is considered a higher-welfare alternative
Pre-slaughter mortality — birds dying before reaching the line — is used as a welfare indicator

Welfare Considerations

Broiler slaughter involves a cascade of handling events, each with significant welfare implications. Live catching causes acute wing and leg injuries affecting millions of birds. Shackling inverted at slaughter plants is distressing and painful. Water-bath stunning requires correct electrical parameters; failures mean birds enter the scalding tank conscious. Controlled atmosphere stunning eliminates shackling-conscious suffering but requires capital investment most producers resist. The welfare stakes are enormous given the scale: even modest improvements in broiler slaughter welfare affect tens of billions of animals globally.

What You Can Do

Support certification schemes requiring controlled atmosphere stunning for broilers
Advocate for mandatory pre-slaughter welfare auditing at all poultry processing facilities
Reduce chicken consumption to lower throughput pressure on processing facilities
Ask poultry producers and retailers about their slaughter method requirements
Support welfare research developing better catching technologies to reduce live-handling injuries