Farm Animals

Broiler Welfare Catching and Transport

The catching and transport of broiler chickens to slaughter is a major welfare event involving manual or mechanical catching, crating, loading, and journey to slaughterhouse.

Key Facts

Manual catching of broilers causes injuries through broken wings and dislocated hips
Mechanical harvesting reduces some catching injuries but requires careful management
Journey times and temperatures affect broiler welfare significantly during transport
Pre-slaughter mortality increases with journey length and poor vehicle conditions
Catching at night when birds are calmer reduces struggling and injury

Welfare Considerations

Broiler catching and transport welfare requires trained catchers, appropriate journey time limits, ventilation, and monitoring. The welfare cost of catching millions of birds weekly is enormous. Mechanical harvesting improvements and catching protocol training are priority interventions.

What You Can Do

Advocate for broiler catching welfare standards including training requirements
Support research into lower-stress catching methods for broiler production
Choose higher welfare certified chicken from schemes with catching welfare requirements