Broiler breeders — the parent birds that produce commercial broiler chickens — must be chronically underfed to prevent health problems caused by their extreme genetic growth potential. This is a unique and severe welfare problem.
Broiler breeder welfare is perhaps the starkest welfare paradox in all of animal agriculture: birds must be kept hungry to stay alive. The genetic drive for growth, bred into the commercial lines, is so extreme that allowing birds to eat freely guarantees rapid fatal disease. The solution — chronic feed restriction — causes genuine hunger-related suffering that has been documented through physiological and behavioral studies. This is not a solvable problem within the current genetic framework; it requires either breeding parent lines with less extreme growth genetics or accepting that the current production system requires causing chronic hunger to its breeding animals.