Slower-growing broiler chicken breeds represent one of the most significant available improvements for broiler welfare, trading off growth efficiency for substantially better health and behavior.
Broiler breed selection is the most impactful single variable determining broiler chicken welfare, because the fastest-growing breeds carry welfare compromises genetically encoded into their biology that cannot be remedied by improved management. The cardiovascular strain, skeletal inadequacy, and locomotion problems of modern extreme-growth breeds create welfare deficits that persist even in high-welfare production environments. Slower-growing breeds that allow adequate skeletal development and more normal physiological ratios show dramatically reduced welfare problems - birds that can walk, run, and behave normally throughout their lives rather than becoming progressively less mobile as their muscle mass outpaces their structural capacity. The Better Chicken Commitment is moving major food companies toward growth rate caps that would make these improvements industry-standard.