Understanding the risk factors associated with transport and lairage that compromise meat chicken welfare 

Year: 2024 

Jarrah Ransome 
University of New England, Australia 

Supervisors: Tamsyn Crowley (University of New England, Australia) and Peta Taylor (University of Melbourne, Australia) 

HSA Student/Trainee Scholarship 2024 

Catching and transporting meat chickens must be done correctly to ensure the conditions are optimised to reduce stress on the birds and people involved (Benincasa et al., 2020; Castro et al., 2023). This project aimed to identify the key risk factors in these pre-slaughter stages under commercial conditions. It was hypothesised that the catching method, climatic conditions, and duration of transportation would impact the number of birds that die during transportation expressed as “dead on arrival” (DOA). Transportation (n=68,539,177 birds in total) of free-range (n=13,933 birds), conventional (n=732), and Ross308 chickens (n=13,201)   from farms (n=69) to one of two processing plants in Victoria, Australia, over a 15-month period were included. Data were recorded by farm managers and QA personnel and included bird characteristics such as bird age and average body weight, and the method of catching, either manual (n=7,070 birds) or mechanical (n=6,863), the duration of catching, time spent on truck and in lairage, the duration of feed withdrawal before slaughter, and the number of birds DOA at the slaughter plant. Climatic conditions were sourced from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology including average daily temperature, rainfall, and relative humidity. Data were analysed using RStudio. Risk factors (n=28) were included in a random forest analysis. The random forest model explained 41% of the variance in DOA, and DOA was not related to the catching method (P>0.05). The factors that were found to contribute to DOA were increased average body weight, time spent on truck, duration from catching to kill, lairage duration, and minimum average daily temperature (P < 0.05). While significant effects were identified as risk factors for DOA, average DOA was low (0.32% ± SEM) and below company QA welfare thresholds. While the low rate of DOA reflects effective practices, we identified variables for further investigation for continual improvements to chicken welfare. These findings suggest that efforts should focus on identifying areas where changes to current practices could have the greatest impact to further reduce mortality and enhance welfare and economic outcomes.