Livestock Genetics and Animal Welfare

Selective breeding for production traits has created livestock with genetic predispositions to welfare problems — and welfare-focused breeding programmes offer a path to systemic improvement.

Key Facts

Modern dairy cows produce 10,000+ litres of milk per year — physiologically unsustainable without high metabolic cost
Broiler chickens selected for rapid growth have lameness, cardiovascular, and respiratory disease rates that reflect the cost of extreme growth selection
High-yielding breeds have shorter productive lives and higher disease rates than traditional breeds
Genomic selection allows breeding programmes to select for welfare traits including longevity, lameness resistance, and disease resistance
The EU Farm to Fork strategy calls for attention to welfare impacts in animal breeding

Welfare Considerations

Livestock genetic selection has optimised for production metrics while leaving welfare as a secondary consideration — or ignoring it entirely. The result is animals whose bodies are physiologically overwhelmed by their productivity: dairy cows with ketosis and lameness, broilers that cannot walk comfortably, turkeys that cannot reproduce naturally. These welfare problems are built in at the genetic level. Changing them requires incorporating welfare traits — longevity, disease resistance, structural soundness — into breeding indices alongside production traits. This is achievable but requires commitment from breeding companies, farmers, and regulators.

What You Can Do

Support breeding programmes that incorporate welfare traits alongside production metrics
Choose products from farms using breeds with documented lower welfare problem rates
Advocate for welfare trait requirements in animal breeding regulations
Support research into the genetic basis of welfare-relevant traits in livestock species
Engage with the Better Chicken Commitment as a model for breed reform in other species