Transporting broiler chickens to slaughter is among the highest-risk welfare events in poultry production, causing significant mortality, injury, and acute stress across billions of birds annually.
Broiler chickens face their most acute welfare crisis in the catching, crating, loading, transport, and lairage sequence before slaughter. Each stage involves significant fear and potential for injury. Manual catching by workers grabbing multiple birds by the legs causes wing dislocations and fractures. Loading onto transport vehicles exposes birds to environmental extremes. Reducing journey times, improving catching training, and expanding mechanical catching use all reduce welfare harm at this critical production stage.