Billions of chickens and turkeys are slaughtered annually. Conditions in slaughter facilities significantly affect welfare in the final moments of animals' lives. Reform is urgently needed.
Poultry slaughter is a critical but often overlooked welfare issue. The final hours and minutes of billions of animals' lives are shaped by slaughter method and facility conditions. Shackling conscious birds upside down causes acute pain from wing and leg injuries; water bath stunning can fail; high-CO2 gas stunning is aversive. Better alternatives exist — controlled atmosphere killing with inert gases can render birds unconscious without aversive distress — but adoption has been slow due to infrastructure costs. The scale of suffering involved in ineffective or painful slaughter methods is staggering given the numbers of animals affected. Consumer, regulatory, and corporate pressure to adopt best-practice methods is critical.