Backyard chickens are increasingly popular as a food-production and companion animal hybrid. Providing appropriate welfare requires understanding chickens as sentient social animals.
Backyard chickens occupy an ambiguous welfare space — they are often better treated than commercial laying hens but are sometimes viewed primarily as egg-production units rather than sentient companions deserving of full welfare consideration. The welfare-positive approach treats backyard chickens as the intelligent, social animals they are: providing veterinary care when ill, ensuring appropriate social group size, delivering environmental enrichment through perches, dust baths, and foraging opportunities, and making compassionate decisions about individual animals who stop laying. The welfare of spent hens — often rehomed or culled when egg production declines — is a particular concern. Committing to lifetime care of backyard hens before acquiring them is the welfare-positive foundation for responsible backyard chicken keeping.