Providing environmental enrichment for broiler chickens offers a practical and evidence-based way to improve welfare outcomes in commercial poultry production.
Barren broiler environments cause significant behavioral deprivation suffering. Chickens are curious, intelligent birds with a range of natural behaviors — dustbathing, foraging, perching, and exploration — that cannot be expressed in standard industrial housing. Behavioral frustration from deprivation contributes to aggression, feather pecking, and chronic stress. Lack of perching causes leg muscle weakness and skeletal problems in fast-growing breeds. Foraging deprivation leads to redirected pecking behaviors that cause injury. Research consistently shows that even simple, inexpensive enrichments like straw bales and hanging pecking objects significantly reduce fearfulness scores and improve leg health. The cost of enrichment is modest — yet most conventional broiler production continues to offer barren environments on grounds of minimal additional cost.