Slaughter is the final welfare-significant event in a farmed animal's life, and the quality of stunning and killing methods determines whether animals suffer in their final moments.
The welfare quality of slaughter determines whether animals die without suffering or experience conscious pain and distress in their final moments. Properly applied stunning renders animals immediately unconscious before killing. Mis-stuns from poor equipment maintenance, inadequate training, or high line speeds allow animals to regain consciousness before or during killing. The combination of industry pressure for speed and the inherent difficulty of monitoring individual animals creates ongoing welfare risk in high-throughput slaughter systems.