Moving beyond basic turkey welfare, breed reform and advances in slaughter stunning methods represent the frontier of improving welfare for hundreds of millions of turkeys globally.
Turkey breed reform is arguably the single highest-impact intervention for improving commercial turkey welfare. The shift from fast-growing to slower-growing breeds would eliminate or substantially reduce the endemic lameness, cardiovascular disease, and reproductive problems caused by extreme selection for muscle mass. Alongside breed reform, transitioning from water-bath to controlled atmosphere stunning would eliminate the pre-stun distress caused by inversion and shackling. Consumer certification schemes that specify breed standards and stunning methods provide a market signal to drive these changes. Regulatory reform requiring welfare-assessed breed standards would be the most systematic solution.