Broiler breeder chickens — the parents of meat chickens — are kept in a state of chronic hunger to prevent obesity that would impair reproduction.
Broiler parent welfare represents one of the most ethically troubling aspects of the modern poultry system — deliberately induced chronic hunger in animals with strong feeding motivation. Feed restriction is applied because broiler genetics create birds that would become obese and reproductively non-viable if fed to appetite. The solution chosen by the industry is hunger rather than alternative genetics. Welfare scientists consistently identify this as severe and sustained suffering affecting hundreds of millions of birds globally each year.