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Broiler chickens
Delving into the harsh realities faced by broiler chickens and the urgent need for humane reforms in the poultry industry, where efficiency often overshadows welfare.
In recent decades, the broiler chicken industry has undergone significant changes to increase productivity and meet the growing demand for meat.
These changes have resulted in broiler chickens growing at an accelerated rate and reaching slaughter weight at a younger age. While this has allowed for increased efficiency and profitability for producers, it has also raised concerns about the welfare of these chickens.
Welfare issues facing broiler chickens on factory farms
Selective breeding
Broiler chickens are bred to grow unnaturally large and quickly, leading to painful lameness, overworked hearts and lungs, and skin sores and burns.
Overcrowding
Industrial chicken sheds can hold tens of thousands of birds, leaving each animal with less floor space than an A4 piece of paper. This extreme overcrowding prevents chickens from moving or behaving naturally, such as pecking or spreading their wings.
Lack of natural light and space
Most factory-grown chickens spend their lives in closed sheds without natural light, causing leg problems and lameness. They are also unable to perform natural behaviors like perching, foraging, exploring, and dust-bathing, leading to physical and psychological suffering.
Sitting and lying in waste
Chickens in industrial farms often spend their lives sitting or lying in their own waste, leading to painful skin lesions and respiratory and eye problems.
Approximately 60 billion chickens are reared for meat each year. 40 billion of them are raised in intensive farming systems. It’s time for change for chickens!
It's time to demand change in the broiler chicken farming industry. Higher-welfare indoor systems are already in use and can provide chickens with more time to grow, more space, more natural lighting rhythms, and more opportunities to behave like chickens.
The cost of improving chicken welfare
Producing chicken in better welfare conditions is far cheaper than previously believed. Our chicken welfare report, 'Valuing Higher Welfare Chicken', found that the proposed improvements to give intensively farmed chickens better lives can be easily introduced to most existing systems.
These improvements include:
- providing enrichment,
- floor-based litter for dust-bathing,
- six hours of continuous darkness per day,
- the use of slower-growing birds with proven higher welfare outcomes,
- and fewer birds per area.
By supporting humane farming methods, including high welfare free range and organic production, we can also improve the conditions in which farm animals live and die while also having health benefits for ourselves and the environment.
What you can do
Eat less meat
Caring about the lives of farm animals is a choice we can all make. The conditions in which farm animals live and die can be improved by our purchase power.
One of the most impactful things you can do for the welfare of chickens and other farm animals is to reduce the amount of meat you eat. There are many great recipes and meal plans that can help you. We have developed one to offer this option and support to anyone interested.
Use our guide to help make more thoughtful choices
Choosing to eat less meat and higher welfare products is better for animals, people, and the planet. Food produced through humane farming methods, including high welfare free range and organic production can also have health benefits for you, and is better for the environment.
Understand grocery labels for animal products
You can help farm animals live a better life by making informed decisions at the grocery store.
Hold fast food companies to account
In our chicken welfare report, 'The Pecking Order', we ranked eight of the largest fast food giants on how they prioritize chicken welfare and what they're doing to improve it. However, despite making billions of dollars from chickens, these companies are doing very little to protect them from the cruelty and suffering they endure on factory farms. As consumers, we need to hold these companies accountable and demand that they take cruelty off their menu.
Thanks to caring animal advocates, we have been able to influence companies to make a real change for chickens and other farmed animals.
The Better Chicken Commitment
The Better Chicken Commitment is an initiative based on the latest science that encourages companies to make improvements for chickens. It includes the adoption of slower growing breeds, more space for the birds to move around and enrichments. Signing onto the Better Chicken Commitment is a proven step forward for chicken welfare that companies can do right now.
Over 200 companies have already signed onto the Better Chicken Commitment because they know that it’s the right thing to do.