The management of laying hens at the end of their productive lives — including catching, transport, and slaughter methods — determines welfare outcomes for billions of hens annually and represents a welfare challenge across all production systems.
End-of-lay hen welfare receives disproportionately little attention relative to the scale of animals affected and the severity of potential welfare harms. The depopulation process — catching, crating, loading, transport, and slaughter — involves multiple stressors applied to hens whose bone density is compromised by a full laying cycle and who may be carrying unhealed keel bone fractures. Catching by unskilled workers causes fractures, dislocations, and haematomas. Transport of depleted hens in cold weather to low-value processing plants involves prolonged journeys where hypothermia and dehydration are real risks. At slaughter, water bath stunning systems frequently fail to render all birds unconscious before neck cutting when not properly calibrated for the lighter, more variable end-of-lay body weights. On-farm killing using CAK systems avoids the transport welfare costs entirely, but requires investment that producers of low-value end-of-lay hens are reluctant to make without regulatory or market pressure.