Even within commercial broiler systems, providing environmental enrichment significantly improves welfare by allowing chickens to express natural behaviors.
Broiler chickens in conventional systems spend their entire lives on barren litter under near-continuous artificial lighting with nothing to explore or engage. Yet research consistently shows that even simple enrichments — straw bales to perch on and peck at, natural light cycles, pecking objects — dramatically increase activity and improve welfare indicators. The behavioral repertoire of chickens is rich and persistent; they will engage with enrichments even when raised in environments that have never provided them. Enrichment is not a luxury but a response to documented welfare need.