How selective breeding for rapid growth has compromised broiler welfare and what breed reform means for billions of birds annually.
Broiler welfare represents one of the largest-scale, most preventable welfare crises in modern animal agriculture. The birds produced in conventional systems carry a genetic growth rate that their cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems cannot reliably support. The result is that a significant proportion of the 70+ billion birds raised annually experience leg pain, difficulty walking, contact dermatitis and cardiac or respiratory failure — not as exceptional incidents but as predictable consequences of the production system. Breed reform is the single most impactful structural change available, with evidence showing dramatic welfare improvements without the unit cost increases that industry often predicts.