Slaughter is a critical welfare point for poultry. Effective stunning ensures birds are unconscious before killing, but implementation quality varies widely across the industry.
The welfare of poultry at slaughter involves the entire catching, transport, and stunning process — not merely the moment of death. Live shackling of conscious birds causes significant distress, pain from shackling injuries, and fear. Water bath stunning is poorly standardized across the industry and frequently results in ineffective stunning. Controlled atmosphere stunning that renders birds unconscious before handling is significantly more welfare-positive but requires capital investment that industry has been slow to adopt. Given the billions of chickens slaughtered annually, improvements to stunning methods represent among the largest potential welfare gains achievable through industry practice change.