The catching and loading of broiler chickens before slaughter is one of the highest welfare risk points in poultry production. Mechanized catching and improved training reduce but do not eliminate the welfare harm.
Poultry catching represents a welfare-intensive period where the cumulative effects of fear, handling stress and physical injury affect many birds. Even with trained catchers using recommended techniques, the process of capturing active birds in low light, carrying them inverted, and loading them into crates causes fear responses. Injuries occur when birds struggle violently or are handled incorrectly. The scale of the operation - many thousands of birds per catching team per night - makes consistent technique difficult to maintain. Dead on arrival figures, while representing a small percentage, translate to millions of individual bird deaths annually in the UK alone. Welfare at catching is one of the least visible points in the poultry production chain and receives less attention than in-house welfare during the growing period.