Advances in poultry stunning technology are improving pre-slaughter welfare outcomes for billions of chickens, turkeys, and ducks annually.
Poultry slaughter welfare involves the largest number of individual animals of any farm animal sector. Conventional water bath electrical stunning requires birds to be shackled upside down — a highly stressful procedure — before being dragged through an electrified water bath that may fail to stun all birds simultaneously. Birds that are too large, too small, or poorly positioned may receive inadequate electrical dose, meaning they may regain consciousness before or during neck cutting. The welfare case for CAS and LAPS systems is strong: both enable stunning without prior shackling, address entire containers of birds simultaneously, and achieve more reliable effective stunning rates. The economic transition costs are real but declining, and consumer and regulatory pressure is accelerating adoption in leading markets.