Meat chickens (broilers) and egg-laying hens face distinct welfare challenges shaped by very different breeding and housing systems. Understanding both is essential for informed advocacy.
The welfare challenges facing broilers and layers are both serious but qualitatively different. Broilers suffer from the physical consequences of extreme growth - lameness, heart failure (ascites), and heat stress. Their suffering is often acute and of shorter duration due to their brief lives. Layers face chronic stress from social crowding, inability to perform nesting and foraging behaviors, and feather pecking. Both systems involve male chick culling: layer males are culled at hatch because they cannot lay eggs; broiler females are theoretically both useful but the industry also culls imperfect chicks. No major commercial chicken system is free of significant welfare concerns.