Broiler chickens are the world's most farmed land animals, with welfare challenges rooted in decades of selective breeding for rapid growth. Slower-growing breeds offer a meaningful welfare improvement.
The welfare of fast-growing broiler chickens is compromised at a scale that is almost incomprehensible — billions of individuals living short lives characterised by pain from skeletal problems, cardiovascular stress, muscle disorders that impair normal movement, and the inability to walk, explore, or engage in natural behaviours. The leg problems alone — causing lameness in a significant minority of all birds in commercial flocks — represent suffering at a scale that dwarfs most other animal welfare concerns. The shift to slower-growing breeds is one of the single highest-impact interventions available in food system reform. Food companies that have signed the BCC represent a major market force for change; consumer and NGO pressure to accelerate adoption is a direct welfare intervention.