Catching, crating and transporting poultry causes significant welfare harm before slaughter. Mechanisation, training standards and journey time limits reduce but do not eliminate this suffering.
Poultry pre-slaughter welfare represents the final welfare insult in a production system that has already compromised welfare throughout. The catching and transport phase causes acute pain through physical injury during handling, fear from restraint and novel environments, and physiological stress from crowding, temperature extremes and vibration. Investment in mechanised catching, trained catching teams, appropriate journey time enforcement and temperature-controlled transport reduces suffering measurably. The alignment between welfare and meat quality in this phase — stressed birds produce lower quality meat — provides commercial incentives for welfare improvement that welfare arguments alone have failed to achieve.