Pig slaughter is one of the most welfare-critical moments in pork production. Stunning effectiveness, handling practices, and facility design determine whether millions of pigs experience fear and pain at death.
Pig slaughter welfare depends on a chain of decisions from farm to kill line. Pre-slaughter stress compounds in each phase: transport, lairage crowding, electric prod use, and stunning quality all influence the animal's physiological state at the moment of death. CO2 stunning — despite being the industry standard — causes an aversion response during induction that is well-documented: pigs attempt to escape and vocalize. Alternative stunning methods including nitrogen-argon mixtures or electrical head-to-back stunning avoid this aversion phase but require significant infrastructure investment. Welfare auditing at slaughter plants using animal-based outcome measures — vocalization rate, stunning efficacy, and fall frequency — provides the most reliable evidence of actual welfare performance.