Poultry Transport Welfare: Catching, Loading and Transit

The transport of live poultry from farm to slaughterhouse involves multiple welfare-critical stages including manual catching, crating, transit and lairage, each associated with significant welfare harms.

Key Facts

Mechanical chicken catching reduces wing and leg fractures by up to 20% compared to manual catching
Overnight crating before transport causes heat stress and thirst in warm conditions
Journey times for UK poultry are often under 4 hours but welfare failures occur even in short transports
Dead on arrival rates at UK poultry slaughterhouses average 0.25%, representing millions of birds annually
Pre-slaughter stress from transport affects both chicken welfare and meat quality simultaneously

Welfare Considerations

Poultry transport imposes welfare harms at every stage. Manual catching in barns causes wing and leg fractures in a significant percentage of birds. Loading into crates involves further handling stress. Overnight crating before transport exposes birds to temperature extremes and food and water deprivation. The transit itself adds vibration and noise stress. By the time birds arrive at slaughter, many have experienced hours of accumulated welfare harm. The relatively short journey times of UK poultry do not eliminate these harms — they reduce exposure time but do not address catching injuries, crating conditions or thermal stress. Investment in mechanical catching and temperature-controlled vehicles would make meaningful improvements.

What You Can Do

Support poultry welfare standards that include transport and pre-slaughter handling requirements
Advocate for mechanical catching to be required in all commercial poultry operations
Choose chicken and turkey products from farms with certified pre-slaughter welfare standards
Support research into reducing poultry transport stress through improved vehicle design and crating systems