Commercially hatched chicks are denied maternal contact from their first moments, with welfare implications for thermoregulation, learning, and stress that brooding mothers would normally provide.
Maternal deprivation at hatching is a largely invisible welfare cost of commercial poultry production. Chicks raised without maternal guidance show measurable differences in fear responses, stress coping, and learning that reflect the absence of behavioural inheritance that maternal rearing provides. The commercial model of incubating and raising millions of chicks without maternal contact makes brooding impractical at scale, but welfare-focused small-scale producers demonstrate that alternatives exist. At minimum, understanding that commercially raised chicks are deprived of significant developmental input should motivate investment in compensatory brooding environments and enrichment.