Modern fast-growing broiler breeds have been selected for growth rate at a severe cost to skeletal, cardiac, and respiratory health that constitutes a systemic welfare crisis.
Fast-growth broiler welfare represents arguably the largest single animal welfare problem by scale in agriculture. Approximately 70 billion broilers are raised globally each year, with the majority being fast-growing breeds that suffer predictable, preventable health problems by design. A broiler that can barely walk at slaughter age — not from disease but from its own skeletal-cardiac-respiratory inability to support its artificially accelerated growth — is a walking welfare indictment of selective breeding priorities. Slowing growth rates to 56+ days and changing breed standards fundamentally addresses this. Industry resistance is economic, not technical — slower breeds are viable, healthier, and increasingly demanded by major food companies that have signed welfare commitments.