Poultry Catching and Handling at Depopulation

The process of catching and loading poultry for transport to slaughter is a major welfare event affecting billions of birds annually, often characterized by significant physical injury.

Key Facts

Manual catching of broiler chickens involves grabbing birds by their legs and carrying multiple at once
Injuries from catching include dislocations, fractures, and bruising that affect meat quality
Mechanical harvesting machines have been developed but are not universally adopted
Catching typically occurs at night when birds are calmer, but still causes significant stress
Birds may be caught hours before slaughter, spending that time in crates without feed or water
Breast blisters and hock burns from litter contact make handling more painful for affected birds

Welfare Considerations

The catching and loading process is consistently identified as one of the highest welfare-impact events in poultry production. Manual catching by inexperienced or rushed workers results in high rates of injury, particularly to legs and wings. The stress of capture, confinement in transport crates, and temperature extremes during transport compounds welfare impacts. Even with mechanical catching systems, significant bird stress and injury occur. Improvements require better training standards, mechanical adoption, and attention to transport conditions as well as the catching process itself.

What You Can Do

Support mandatory training standards for poultry catching and handling workers
Advocate for industry adoption of mechanical catching systems with welfare monitoring
Choose poultry from producers with transparent catching and transport welfare standards
Reduce poultry consumption or transition to plant-based alternatives
Support organizations monitoring and reporting on transport welfare for farmed poultry