The welfare of broiler chickens

Extract

The broiler bird is the most commonly kept farm animal in the UK. Each year some 650 million of these animals are produced and eaten. The vast majority are reared intensively in, what many people would consider, overcrowded conditions. They have such a high growth rate of muscle tissue that, in some ways, they often overgrow the ability of their legs to support their body weight. Many of the birds consequently suffer from painful leg disorders in the latter part of their brief lives. They are collected, often in a somewhat rough manner, transported to the poultry slaughterhouse, suspended upside down on a hanging rail and stunned/killed by a sometimes inefficient electrical process. Broiler production is thus probably the biggest single animal welfare problem in the UK.