Transporting poultry from farm to slaughter causes significant welfare problems through heat stress, crowding, injury, and journey duration. Dead-on-arrival rates are a key welfare indicator that differs substantially between transport systems and management approaches.
Poultry transport welfare is a chain of compounding stressors rather than a single event. Birds already experiencing the physical strain of fast growth are subjected to catching, crating, vehicle motion, temperature extremes, noise, and prolonged food and water deprivation. The mortality visible in DOA statistics represents only the most severe welfare outcome — the larger population of birds arriving alive but in states of extreme physiological stress is much larger and invisible in statistics. Monitoring welfare across the transport chain requires data sharing between farms, hauliers, and slaughterhouses that is rarely mandated or practiced systematically. DOA rate reporting as a welfare key performance indicator — with financial consequences for poor performance — is an emerging regulatory tool in several European countries.