Broiler breeders — the parent birds that produce commercial meat chickens — face severe welfare compromise through chronic feed restriction to prevent obesity-related illness.
Broiler breeder welfare is one of the most severe and institutionalized welfare compromises in modern animal agriculture. Chronically restricting the feed intake of hungry birds to 25-50% of their natural intake causes persistent hunger that is a form of suffering — the birds spend much of their time engaged in stereotypic foraging behaviors reflecting food-seeking frustration. This is not a marginal problem: it affects virtually every parent bird in the commercial broiler supply chain globally, amounting to hundreds of millions of birds at any given time. The problem is structural — it arises directly from the selection for fast growth in broiler genetics. Transitioning to slower-growing genetics would reduce the severity of restriction required, but the industry has been slow to make this change.