Broiler breeder chickens — the parent generation producing commercial meat chickens — endure chronic feed restriction that causes prolonged hunger and frustration throughout their lives.
Broiler breeder welfare represents a systemic problem created by selective breeding. These birds are genetically drive to eat and grow rapidly, but must be chronically denied feed to survive long enough to reproduce. The result is an estimated lifetime of hunger — feed-restricted birds show higher motivation for food, more aggressive food-seeking behaviour, and elevated stress indicators compared to ad libitum-fed controls. This is a welfare harm imposed on hundreds of millions of birds that is structurally embedded in the broiler meat production system. Transitioning to slower-growing broiler genetics would reduce the severity of required restriction and is the only systemic solution.