What do we know about the impacts of poultry catching?

The global demand for food production, especially poultry, has contributed significantly to the supply of protein. Industries, as an important link in the production chain, aim to serve the consumer market, which increasingly seeks agility, economy and quality in products and processes, especially for those related to animal and human welfare. This study highlights the context of broiler chicken catching from the animal, human, and economic welfare perspective. A systematic review about the literature was conducted in three phases: definition of the research protocol, analysis of articles selected and synthesis of the findings. After selecting descriptors/words and searching databases, inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, 40 articles were selected. The findings showed that the publications on the subject started in Europe, South Africa and North America in the 1980s. Poultry Science, with an impact factor of 2,027, published the most of the articles. The authors brought contributions in some areas, such as lesions, dead on arrival (DOA) at the slaughterhouse and consumer perception on animal welfare (AW). Finally, mechanised catching has the potential to replace manual catching, providing health and welfare benefits for animals and workers besides cost savings.