Modern broiler chickens have been bred to grow so rapidly that their bodies cannot keep pace, causing serious welfare problems throughout their short lives.
Broiler chicken welfare represents one of the largest-scale animal welfare problems globally - tens of billions of animals annually living short lives marked by chronic pain from musculoskeletal disease, cardiovascular failure, and respiratory distress. The root cause is deliberate selective breeding for production traits that produce structurally compromised birds. The welfare solution - transitioning to slower-growing breeds - is proven effective and increasingly adopted by European producers responding to Better Chicken Commitment standards. Consumer and corporate pressure on this specific issue has demonstrated measurable welfare improvement potential at enormous scale.