The catching and transport of poultry for slaughter is associated with high rates of injury, stress, and mortality. It represents one of the highest-risk welfare periods in the lives of commercially farmed chickens and turkeys.
Manual catching involves grabbing birds by the legs and inverting them, causing acute pain from leg strain and wing beating injuries. Multiple birds are caught simultaneously and crammed into transport crates at high density. The unfamiliar environment of the crate, combined with motion, noise, temperature variation, and crowding, causes acute stress measurable by physiological parameters throughout the journey. Mortality during transport represents a welfare failure in a population already at elevated cardiovascular and skeletal disease risk. Waterfowl catching often involves manual herding and is particularly distressing.