Understanding wooden breast, white striping, and other muscle myopathies in broiler chickens — conditions directly caused by selective breeding for rapid growth that affect billions of birds annually.
Broiler myopathies represent one of the clearest examples of a welfare problem created by breeding program decisions that prioritize production traits over animal health. The conditions affect billions of birds annually and cause demonstrable pain through muscle ischemia and inflammation. They are not an accident or management failure — they are a predictable consequence of selecting for maximum breast muscle growth without constraint. The solution is clear in principle: slower-growing breeds with lower myopathy rates are already commercially available and used in higher-welfare production systems. The welfare barrier is economic: the industry has not internalized the welfare cost of myopathies into the cost of production at the rates required to shift practices without consumer and regulatory pressure.