For decades broiler chickens (chickens reared for meat) have been selectively bred to grow at a significantly faster rate than nature intended. Today’s broiler chicken will reach slaughter weight by 40-42 days – this is twice as fast as 30 years ago.
Scale of problem
Around 48 billion chickens are reared for their meat in the world every year
Over five billion of them in the EU
The majority of them are intensively farmed in windowless, barren and crowded sheds
Each shed could house tens of thousands of birds for their brief lives
Why is fast growth a problem?
Meat chickens can suffer terribly from leg problems. They have been bred to grow faster to reduce the cost of chicken meat, but often grow so fast that their health suffers. Millions of birds go lame in the latter part of their short lives – their legs unable to support their meaty bodies. Each year millions more die of heart and lung problems connected with their huge demand for oxygen to fuel their rapid growth.
They suffer from overcrowding as they reach slaughter weight. This restricts exercise, which would be good for their legs and help prevent skeletal problems.
Crowding also results in the build up of ammonia from their droppings polluting the littered flooring, which can cause blisters on their breasts, feet and legs (hock burns).
The breeding flock
Because meat chickens have been selectively bred to eat tremendous amounts of food and grow very quickly, if allowed to eat freely they would likely succumb to obesity, skeletal problems and heart failure at a few weeks of age. This poses a problem with regards to breeding, as many birds would die before reaching sexual maturity at 18 weeks of age.
The industry deals with this problem by severely restricting the feed intake of the chickens kept for breeding purposes. As a result, these chickens may often be chronically hungry, frustrated and stressed.
CIWF believes that the poultry industry should change its policy of breeding for fast, meaty growth. Instead the industry should produce slower-growing chickens, who can have a better quality of life.
Impacts on human health
Intensive broiler systems also have serious health implications for consumers. Between 1992 and 1999 a fifth of all reported food-borne sicknesses in the UK alone were related to poultry consumption.
These outbreaks occur despite the fact that broilers are often routinely administered antibiotics in order to prevent and control the spread of disease. Antibiotics have often been routinely administered to broilers as growth promoters. New laws are now restricting their use due to the dangers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria infecting humans. In effect, antibiotics are being used to compensate for the poor conditions that boilers endure – treating the symptoms, not the cause.
Although new laws will restrict the use of antibiotics as growth promoters, they are still used in huge quantities to treat disease and to prevent disease in the meat chicken flock.
On a worldwide level, the rapid growth of intensive farming in Asia seems to be mirrored by the increase in animal diseases such as Avian ‘Flu, which can and has infected humans with deadly results.
The alternatives
Because of concern about meat chicken welfare and human health issues, consumers are demanding an increasing supply of meat from organic and free-range chickens, who are given access to fresh air and daylight, environmental stimulation and the opportunity to exercise outdoors during the day.
CIWF believes that all chickens should be kept in these more humane systems.
Brief history and future objectives
CIWF and its ECFA (European Coalition for Farm Animals) partners are campaigning on broiler chickens.
Sadly, we lost the case, although the judge declared that the welfare of meat chickens was a matter of serious concern and that our case had been taken in the public interest.
(Actress Kate Ford, of Coronation Street fame, supports CIWF’s chicken welfare case at the High Court in London 2003.)
CIWF UK also conducted a survey of the incidence of hock burns in supermarket chickens at the end of 2003. It found that as many as 35 per cent of chickens suffered these painful leg sores, caused by chickens squatting for long periods in their own excrement.
An EU Directive on meat chickens was agreed in May 2007. It is very disappointing - it gives the green light to the continuation of the industrial farming of broilers. In particular, it allows chickens to be kept in severely overcrowded conditions and it permits the continued use of fast growing broilers who often suffer from painful leg disorders and heart failure. However, the Directive requires a number of future reports to be produced, particularly on fast growth rates and the labelling of chicken meat; these reports will give CIWF the opportunity to lobby vigorously for the Directive to be strengthened.
CIWF is encouraging groups throughout the world to educate the public and governments about the terrible conditions in which most meat chickens are kept.
For further information on meat chickens, visit our Publications section.
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