Poultry Pre-Slaughter Handling and Stunning

How pre-slaughter handling and stunning methods affect the welfare of chickens, turkeys, and other poultry at the end of life.

Key Facts

The US slaughters approximately 9 billion broiler chickens annually, with welfare at slaughter rarely scrutinized.
Catching, crating, and transport cause significant stress and injury to poultry before slaughter.
Water bath electrical stunning is the most common method but is associated with painful pre-stun shocks.
Controlled atmosphere stunning using gas causes less handling stress and is considered more humane.
Shackling live birds upside down before stunning causes significant pain and distress.
Wing fractures during mechanical catching and processing affect up to 30% of birds in some facilities.

Welfare Considerations

Pre-slaughter handling represents one of the highest-stress periods of a farmed bird's life. The transition from catching to stunning involves multiple stressors that compound welfare harms. Controlled atmosphere stunning systems, where birds enter the gas in their transport containers, eliminate shackling stress and pre-stun electrical shock. While higher in capital cost, these systems can be economically viable at scale. Training catching crew in low-stress handling techniques, reducing stocking densities during transport, and minimizing transport duration all improve welfare outcomes. Regulatory standards for slaughter welfare in many countries remain insufficient and inconsistently enforced.

What You Can Do

Support regulatory reforms requiring controlled atmosphere stunning for commercial poultry.
Choose poultry from producers certified under welfare programs with third-party slaughter audits.
Reduce overall poultry consumption to decrease demand for high-throughput slaughter operations.
Advocate for stronger USDA oversight of poultry slaughter welfare in the US.