Broiler Housing Innovation: Moving Beyond Conventional Sheds

Innovative broiler housing systems — including enriched environments, natural light, and outdoor access — can significantly improve welfare outcomes for the world's most numerous farmed animal.

Key Facts

Over 60 billion broiler chickens are raised and slaughtered each year globally.
Conventional broiler houses are barren, densely stocked environments with 24-hour artificial light.
The Better Chicken Commitment, adopted by hundreds of companies, specifies slower-growing breeds, better space, and natural light.
Slower-growing breeds have significantly lower rates of leg disorders, heart problems, and lameness.
Outdoor access — even brief — reduces fear responses and increases expression of natural behaviors.
Enriched environments with perches, pecking substrates, and litter reduce boredom and injurious behaviors.
Stocking density above 30 kg/m2 is associated with significantly elevated lameness, mortality, and stress indicators.

Welfare Considerations

Broiler housing innovation represents one of the highest-impact welfare opportunities in animal agriculture. The sheer scale of broiler production means that even modest improvements in housing quality translate to welfare gains for tens of billions of animals annually. Transitioning to slower-growing breeds eliminates the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal disease that plagues fast-growing commercial strains. Adding natural light, enrichment objects, and perches allows chickens to express a broader behavioral repertoire. These changes come at a cost — typically a few cents per bird — that many large food companies have agreed to absorb through supply chain commitments. Holding companies to these commitments, and extending them to global supply chains, is a key advocacy priority.

What You Can Do

Support companies that have adopted the Better Chicken Commitment and hold them accountable for implementation.
Choose chicken products certified to higher welfare standards when available.
Advocate for regulatory updates that set minimum space, enrichment, and breed standards for broilers.
Reduce or eliminate chicken consumption as the highest-impact individual dietary change for animal welfare.
Encourage fast-food and food-service companies to publish welfare audit results from their supply chains.