Broiler breeders — the parent birds of commercial meat chickens — experience unique welfare challenges. Identifying and monitoring welfare indicators specific to this population is essential for improvement.
Broiler breeder welfare monitoring requires specific indicators not captured by standard poultry welfare frameworks. The chronic hunger problem creates a cluster of associated welfare impacts — aggression, injury, stereotypy, and psychological distress — that standard mortality and morbidity measures underrepresent. Welfare science for this population has identified that feeding system design (including feed dispersion to reduce competition), enrichment provision, and lighting programmes that reduce hunger-related restlessness can improve outcomes without fully resolving the underlying problem. The ethical imperative is clear: an industry that creates animals incapable of living healthily without severe feed restriction has an obligation to either address the genetic root cause or implement the best available welfare mitigations. Current welfare monitoring frameworks are inadequate to capture the full scope of suffering in this population.