Effective stunning before slaughter prevents conscious pain in poultry. Current industry standards leave significant gaps that cause substantial preventable suffering.
Poultry slaughter welfare is one of the most numerically significant animal welfare issues in existence — the sheer number of birds slaughtered annually means that even small percentage improvements in stunning effectiveness translate to enormous reductions in suffering. Current water bath electrical stunning systems have documented failure rates that leave millions of birds per day conscious during slaughter. Controlled atmosphere systems using elevated carbon dioxide or inert gases achieve more reliable pre-slaughter unconsciousness, though high-CO2 systems can cause distress before unconsciousness. The welfare gap between current practice and achievable best practice in poultry slaughter is large and closable with existing technology and political will. Consumer-facing certification schemes increasingly require effective stunning as a condition of approval.