The design of transport containers and vehicles for farm animals significantly affects welfare outcomes, with poorly designed crates, lairage pens, and vehicle ventilation systems causing preventable injury and stress.
Transport container design is a technical welfare lever that can reduce suffering across billions of animal journeys annually without requiring changes to farming systems. Improved flooring prevents slipping and leg injuries. Better ventilation prevents heat stress. Appropriate partitioning reduces mixing and fighting in social species. The welfare gains from evidence-based transport design standards are large relative to implementation costs, making this one of the more tractable areas for regulatory improvement.