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Transportation

After an average of 45 days in the grower sheds, broiler chickens have reached market weight and are ready to be taken to slaughter. The birds are caught by the legs and thrown into crates. Catching teams load crates at rates of 1,000 to 1,500 birds per hour. Many chickens are injured in the process, suffering dislocated and broken hips, legs, and wings, as well as internal hemorrhages.(45) As one researcher described, “Hip dislocation occurs as the birds are carried in the broiler sheds and loaded into the transport crates. Normally the birds are held by one leg as a bunch of birds in each hand. If one or more birds start flapping, they twist at the hip, the femur detaches, and a subcutaneous haemorrhage is produced which kills the bird....Dead birds that have a dislocated hip often have blood in their mouths, which has been coughed up from the respiratory tract. Sometimes this damage is caused by too much haste on the part of the catchers.”(46)

Once the crates are packed onto trucks, the chickens are transported to the slaughter plant. One group of researchers concluded, “Chickens find transport a fearful, stressful, injurious and even fatal procedure.”(47) A number of studies have discovered high levels of stress hormones in the blood of chickens during transport.(48) During transport, broiler chickens are denied food, water, and shelter from extreme temperatures.(49) According to one scientist, “Unless crates are properly covered, exposure to wind and cold will rapidly cause freezing of unfeathered parts. The frosted appendage first becomes red and swollen, followed by gangrene, necrosis, and sloughing.”(50) Many chickens die during the trip from hypothermia or heart failure associated with the stresses of catching and transport.(51)

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