Pig slaughter welfare encompasses the entire pre-slaughter period — from lairage to stunning to killing. Pre-slaughter stress compounds rapidly and significantly affects both welfare and meat quality.
Pig slaughter welfare encompasses a critical period from transport arrival through stunning and killing during which stress accumulates rapidly. Lairage — the pre-slaughter holding area — is a major welfare concern: mixing unfamiliar pigs causes fighting, injury, and chronic stress that elevates cortisol and affects meat quality through pale, soft, exudative (PSE) tissue. CO2 stunning, the dominant commercial method, produces unconsciousness through asphyxiation — but at the high concentrations used commercially (80-90% CO2), pigs experience an intensely aversive burning sensation before losing consciousness. This is a genuine welfare problem that alternatives like low-oxygen inert gas stunners address. Slaughter without pre-stunning, permitted under religious exemptions in many jurisdictions, removes the welfare protection that stunning provides and causes documented suffering.