Live poultry transport — particularly over long distances — causes significant welfare harms including thermal stress, dehydration, and injury. Welfare science has identified key risk factors and solutions.
Long-distance live poultry transport is one of the most significant welfare challenges in the modern food system, affecting billions of birds annually. The transport journey involves multiple acute stressors: catching and crating causing fear and injury, confinement in dense crates with no food or water access, and exposure to variable temperatures that can cause hypothermia in cold weather or hyperthermia in warm conditions. Birds that arrive dead or compromised represent the visible tip of a welfare iceberg — many birds survive transport in a state of severe physiological stress. On-farm slaughter or very short transport to nearby facilities would eliminate most transport welfare harms, but economic incentives in the current system favour centralised slaughter facilities requiring longer journeys.