Stress is a part of life and is probably necessary as an adaptative behaviour susceptible to help living organisms to survive in new environmental conditions. Nevertheless, in many cases, acute stress before slaughter can also have some consequences on edible tissue and then modifies poultry meat quality parameters. In this paper, some of the most known sources of stress susceptible to affect meat quality parameters are reviewed in regard to their consequences on meat quality traits. It seems that, in a common range, acute heat stress, crating and transport or feed withdrawal tend to have limited effects on meat quality parameters while, on the contrary, free struggle associated with shackling affects more deeply meat quality.