Transport is one of the most welfare-significant events in farmed animal life. Journey duration, loading conditions, and vehicle design all affect suffering during transport.
Farmed animal transport represents a welfare challenge that affects virtually every animal that enters the food system. The combination of stressors involved — unfamiliar handlers, crowding with unfamiliar animals, vehicle noise and motion, temperature extremes, and complete loss of environmental control — produces acute stress responses in all farmed species. The welfare cost of long-distance live animal transport is substantially greater than the cost of shorter journeys or, ideally, slaughter near the farm of origin. Mobile slaughter units that bring humane slaughter to the farm eliminate transport welfare entirely and are increasingly available in some markets. Consumer and policy pressure for shorter maximum journey times, improved vehicle standards, and development of local slaughter infrastructure addresses the transport welfare problem at its root.