The final hours of farmed animals before slaughter involve transport, lairage, and stunning — a welfare-critical period with significant opportunities for improvement and frequent failures.
The pre-slaughter period represents an avoidable concentration of welfare risk. Transport stress weakens animals entering lairage. Unfamiliar environments and mixing of social groups cause fear and aggression. Rushed and inadequate handling increases stunning failures. Each of these harms compounds the others. Systemic improvement requires better transport standards, proper lairage management, and rigorous stunning monitoring — all with available solutions.