Goat meat production — largely through small-holder and extensive systems globally — presents specific welfare challenges around transport, slaughter, and kid management.
Goat meat welfare receives disproportionately little attention relative to cattle, pig, and poultry production despite goats being the most widely eaten meat animal globally in smallholder systems. The welfare challenges are significant: long-distance live export, lack of pain relief for routine procedures, slaughter without prior stunning, and kid management practices all cause preventable suffering to animals that are demonstrably capable of pain and social-emotional complexity. The global distribution of goat meat production across diverse systems and regions makes welfare improvement challenging but not impossible — targeted interventions on specific welfare threats, support for local slaughter over live export, and analgesic requirement for routine procedures represent achievable improvements.