Keel bone fractures affect the majority of laying hens in many production systems, causing chronic pain that is almost never treated. This represents one of the most overlooked welfare crises in farming.
Keel bone fractures represent a massive, under-recognized welfare crisis affecting hundreds of millions of laying hens. Most fractures are never identified during a hen's productive life, and none receive pain treatment. The pain of a fractured sternum — a bone that moves with every breath — causes chronic, ongoing suffering that cannot be mitigated without either treatment (impractical at scale) or prevention. Prevention requires a multipronged approach: selecting for better bone strength, designing perches that reduce collision impacts, providing adequate nutrition for bone development, and monitoring keel bone integrity as a welfare indicator at slaughter. Consumer and regulatory pressure is needed to make keel bone fracture rates a required welfare disclosure — currently, most production systems have no obligation to monitor or report this.