Broiler Chickens

The Better Chicken Commitment builds six scientifically-based animal welfare measures into one policy to address the most serious problems of chicken production and form a new (CSR) standard in the food industry.

This policy has been widely embraced - over 500 companies have already signed up to the Better Chicken Commitment in the United States, the United Kingdom, and to its sister policy in Europe, the European Chicken Commitment.

This first independent commercial scale trial provides robust evidence of the health and welfare benefits of slower growing breeds of chicken. We hope it will help drive changes in supply chains and large companies to bring about real improvements to chicken welfare. Dr Sioban Mullan, Senior Research Fellow in Animal Welfare at the Bristol Veterinary School

Consumer Attitudes

A recent study by Ketchum’s, a global marketing and communications consulting firm showed that animal welfare was the number one cause Americans cared about. It’s not just independent firms demonstrating this concern by American consumers: industry studies show it too. Take the National Chicken Council, which found that approximately three-quarters of respondents to a 2018 survey conducted for the Council said they were concerned about how chickens are raised for meat. A similar percentage said they were concerned about how chickens are bred to “optimize” meat production.

While on the topic of studies from the industry, they also demonstrate that not only do consumers care about animal welfare, but they prefer the taste of higher welfare meat. According to a study released in PoultryWorld in December of 2019, “a total of 67% of consumers preferred the meat and meat products prepared from slow-growing (higher welfare) broiler meat.” Additionally, the study found that “all the sensory attributes of meat and meat products from slow-growing broilers were similar to those of commercial broiler meat.” According to PoultryWorld, meat from slow-growing broiler chickens thus has the potential to provide “the tasty, alternative poultry meat that consumers appear to want.”

It’s not just what consumers appear to want, higher welfare products are what they want, even if they result in a small price increase. See this sampling of studies:

78% of consumers supported improving the lives of chickens even if it increases the cost of meat. —Broiler Chicken Welfare Survey, NRG Research Group, Jul 5, 2017.

Two-thirds of respondents to a survey conducted for Kettle & Fire said they would be willing to spend anywhere from 5 to 20 percent more for humanely raised food. —From Farm Animal to Food: 2,000 People Share Their Feelings About How Their Food is Raised, Kettle & Fire, 2016.

Speaking of financial implications, according to researchers at the University of Oxford, higher welfare systems can actually result in long-term financial benefits from reduced mortality rates, improved health, improved product quality, improved disease resistance, reduced medication, lower risk of zoonoses and foodborne diseases, increased farmer job satisfaction, and consumer response to increased corporate social responsibility.

The bottom line: higher welfare systems for chickens are what consumers want, what they are willing to pay for, and what will benefit your food business long-term too.

Contact Animal Equality

Commitments to Higher Welfare

Nearly 500 companies have already signed up to the Better Chicken Commitment and/or European Chicken Commitment and published animal welfare standards that meet the requirements described above in all respects. Together with companies in the food industry, we want to phase out practices that are particularly cruel to animals. These companies are taking an important and forward-thinking step in the field of broiler chicken production by increasing their animal welfare criteria. Below you will find examples of leading companies in the United States that have adopted the Better Chicken Commitment.

Criteria / Welfare Measures

The Better Chicken Commitment, consisting of six scientifically based animal welfare criteria, addresses each of the aforementioned serious and troubling problems broiler chickens experience and forms a new (CSR) standard in the food industry.

Every major animal protection organization in North America, as well as more than 30 organizations in Europe, sees an urgent need for action to address these serious animal welfare problems in the field of broiler chicken farming and agree that the Better Chicken Commitment is the minimum welfare standard that all American companies in the broiler chicken sector must achieve by 2024/2026.

Around 500 leading companies already support the Better (and/or European) Chicken Commitment. Join these companies by contacting our Institutional Outreach Manager, Devon Dear, at [email protected].

The Problems These Companies Want to Address

Broiler chickens are the land animals with by far the highest slaughter rates worldwide. Throughout typical farms in the United States broilers experience horrible conditions with the following main problems:

Selective Breeding

Broilers are bred specifically for extremely rapid growth. In 1950, it took the chickens 16 weeks to grow up at the same slaughter weight. In the time since, the genetics of the chickens have been modified so that they reach slaughter weight after a maximum of six weeks, without even reaching sexual maturity. Legs and organs are completely overwhelmed by the unnatural weight gain. This enormous growth at an unnaturally rapid rate is the main cause of the following two fundamental animal welfare problems:

Bone Deformations and Immobility - Regularly Leading To Starvation

Skeletal anomalies are known to be one of the main problems in broiler chicken farming. A study from 2019 investigated a novel form of skeletal deformity in these animals, which affects the cervical spine of broilers: called cervical scoliosis and torticollis. This leads to fatal neck deformities.

The extremely strongly developed chest musculature causes a repositioning of the body's center of gravity, resulting in severe changes in posture and bone deformities of the pelvis and legs.

The skeleton is so underdeveloped compared to the body mass that the legs can no longer bear the weight of the body. The resulting "physiological cage" causes severe lameness, osteomyelitis, osteonecrosis, and arthritis.

The inability to move due to the enormous pain makes it impossible for many animals to reach the continually raised water and food troughs and thus the baby birds die of thirst or hunger. Further, it leads to them being forced to sit and live in their own excrement.

Metabolic Disorders and Cardiovascular Diseases - Early Death and Wasted Money

The unnaturally fast-growing muscle mass leads to a higher oxygen demand in the blood. This greatly increased metabolism causes numerous pathological anomalies such as ascites (water belly), myopathy of the chest muscles, woody breast disease, and white streaks (white muscle disease).

It is estimated that, due to various metabolic disorders and a predisposition to cardiac arrhythmias, sudden cardiac death causes a mortality rate of up to 4% of the chicken flock.

Stocking Density - No Adequate Room To Move and Dirty Litter

Numerous studies have linked the problems of locomotion and bodily burns to stocking density. When chickens are crammed together, litter becomes soiled more quickly and mobility is decreased, because they don’t have adequate room to move.

Behavioral studies about chicken mobility show that the stocking density must be 6 lbs./sq. ft at most to avoid significant welfare implications, and is why the Better Chicken Commitment’s stocking density is set to this marker.

The currently most advertised conditions by the industry do not allow broilers perches or division into resting or activity areas of the house to develop any form of natural sleeping and resting behavior and prevent social interactions.

At the end of the fattening period, the floor of the unit consists of 90% of the animals' excrement, causing not only considerable hygienic problems but also painful irritation of the mucous membranes and inflammation of the animals' chest and feet. Litter is typically only changed once a year, furthering the hock and ammonia burns that the birds are forced to endure.

Stunning and Slaughter - Suffocation, Broken Limbs, Boiled Alive

The problems broiler chickens experience before and during their slaughter are numerous. The process begins by being thrown and squeezed into tight boxes without water or food for their often many hours of transport, so roughly that commonly many animals are badly injured or die of internal bleeding before they reach the slaughterhouse.

The most common method of stunning broilers in the United States is live inversion shackling, also known as the electric waterbath. This involves hanging the animals upside down by their legs, which often results in fractures of the limbs while alive.

Chickens do not have a diaphragm separating the abdomen from the chest; as a result, the organs press on the lungs and air sacs due to the head hanging upside down, making breathing difficult and producing a feeling of suffocation.

The birds are then taken down the slaughter line. Still upside down, their heads are dragged through electrified water. Smaller animals are often not fully dipped in the electrified water and thus are fully conscious and experience extreme pain during their slaughter as their necks are cut open. The ones who are immobilized are still conscious and can feel pain.

The USDA estimates that hundreds of thousands of chickens, known as “red birds,” are unintentionally boiled alive each year because they manage to survive until they reach the scalding water tanks, meant to defeather the birds.