Broiler and turkey transport to slaughter is a major but often invisible welfare problem. The combination of thermal stress, catching injuries, crowding, and journey conditions causes significant suffering for billions of birds annually.
Poultry transport welfare is particularly challenging because the animals involved are among the most physiologically vulnerable — rapidly grown broilers with compromised thermoregulatory capacity transported in high-density, open-sided vehicles. The cumulative stress of catching, crating, loading, the journey itself, and arrival at the slaughterhouse represents a welfare insult that accumulates at every stage. Catching injuries are partially preventable through training, modified catching methods, and lower catching speeds; some operations use mechanical harvesting, which may reduce some injuries while creating others. Thermal stress management requires real-time temperature monitoring in crates, night-time transport scheduling during hot periods, and shade provisioning during holding. The most impactful systemic change would be the development of mobile slaughter units that eliminate transport entirely for some species and contexts — trials in the EU show feasibility.