The catching, transport, and lairage of spent laying hens is a welfare-intensive final period for birds who have reached the end of their productive lives. Evidence-based improvements can reduce this final burden.
Spent laying hens end their lives in physical condition compromised by intensive egg production: depleted calcium causing brittle bones, depleted muscle mass, and often keel bone fractures from their time in production. These physically vulnerable animals then face the most physically demanding welfare event of their lives: the catching process. Manual catching involves grasping and inversion of birds with osteoporotic skeletons that fracture easily. The acute suffering of broken bones during catching, compounded by the fear of handling by unfamiliar humans in a chaotic catching environment, represents a profound welfare failure at the end of a production life already characterized by welfare compromises. In-house controlled atmosphere stunning that renders birds unconscious before catching eliminates this final welfare burden.