Laying Hen End-of-Lay Welfare
The end of lay — when laying hens are removed from production — represents one of the most welfare-significant events in a laying hen's life. Depopulation, transport, and slaughter involve significant stress, and the welfare of spent hens is an important ethical consideration in egg production.
Depopulation Welfare
Catching and loading laying hens for transport is physically demanding and potentially injurious to the birds. Mechanical harvesting systems can reduce handling time but require appropriate design to minimise injury. Manual catching — the most common method — requires trained staff using correct techniques to minimise wing and leg injuries.
Catching at night (when birds are calmer, lighting conditions can be controlled, and thermal stress risk is lower) reduces stress compared to daytime depopulation. Good communication between catching teams, supervisors, and vehicle drivers ensures efficient movement that minimises standing time in transport vehicles before departure.
Transport Welfare
End-of-lay hens are physiologically different from younger birds — they have reduced bone strength (from calcium demands of laying), depleted muscle mass, and compromised immune status. They are more vulnerable to transport stress, injury, and temperature extremes than younger, healthier birds. Transport duration should be minimised, and vehicle loading density adjusted to account for their fragility.
Mortality during transport and dead-on-arrival rates at slaughter are welfare indicators that should be routinely monitored and acted upon when elevated.
Slaughter Welfare
Water bath stunning systems — the most common commercial poultry slaughter method — present welfare challenges for conscious birds entering the stun bath. Low-atmospheric pressure stunning (LAPS) and controlled atmosphere killing (CAK) using inert gases are welfare improvements over water bath stunning for some welfare metrics, though evidence on each is nuanced.
On-farm killing (using LAPS or CO2 systems) is an alternative to live transport for spent hens where transport is particularly stressful or when markets do not exist for spent hen meat, though the economic drivers around spent hen processing are complex.
Economic and Ethical Context
Spent hen meat has lower market value than broiler meat, creating economic pressure that can compromise welfare investment during end-of-lay processing. Developing markets for spent hen products and increasing efficiency of humane slaughter systems provides the economic foundation for welfare improvement.