Backyard chicken keeping has grown significantly in popularity, but welfare problems including predation, disease, and poor nutrition are common in inexperienced flocks.
Backyard chicken keeping can provide excellent welfare for hens given appropriate management, but falls short in many gardens due to predator risk, inadequate space, social isolation, and disease management failures. Chickens are intelligent, social birds that form complex hierarchies and engage in a wide range of natural behaviours when space allows. Confinement in small runs without adequate space for dust bathing, foraging, and social interaction replicates many of the welfare deficits of intensive production. Adopting ex-battery hens through organisations like the British Hen Welfare Trust provides an excellent welfare outcome for animals from the most intense production systems.