Various forms of containerised gas killing systems have been used to slaughter large numbers of poultry on farms during outbreaks of notifiable diseases. However, none of the systems have been fully evaluated to assess bird welfare, operators’ health and safety and biosecurity during operation. In addition, standard operating procedures associated with containerised gas killing systems are lacking in the literature. Therefore, a research and development project was initiated by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in the UK with the primary objective being to develop humane systems for culling poultry on farm and to produce operating procedures based on sound scientific principles. A series of studies have been conducted to achieve the objective and relevant observations and operating procedures are reviewed in this paper.
