Poultry slaughter affects billions of birds annually, and advances in controlled atmosphere stunning and handling systems offer the potential to dramatically reduce suffering at this critical welfare moment.
Poultry slaughter is a welfare challenge of almost incomprehensible scale. At 70 billion broilers annually, even marginal improvements in stunning and handling methods affect more animals than most other welfare interventions combined. The shift from water bath electrical stunning requiring live shackling to multi-stage controlled atmosphere systems that achieve unconsciousness before any handling is the most significant poultry slaughter welfare advance available. This technology eliminates the acute fear and pain of live shackling while achieving effective stunning. The barriers to adoption are primarily economic and inertia-based rather than technical. Consumer and retailer pressure for higher slaughter welfare standards, combined with regulatory requirements, are the most effective levers for accelerating this transition.