Broiler Chickens

Almost 800 million chickens were killed for meat in the UK in 2009.¹

Approximately 98% of all broiler chickens are kept in large, closed sheds with no daylight, often in cramped conditions.²  Industry guidelines currently allow chickens to be kept at 18-19 birds per square metre,³ which leaves a space smaller than an A4 piece of paper per chicken and is less than the legal minimum living space required for a battery hen.  An official figure allowing a maximum of around 19 birds per m² is expected to be made law in England (the EU-wide figure will permit 21 birds per m²).⁴  Even chickens sold as ‘free range’ are usually kept in large sheds and may be kept at a density of 13 chickens per square metre.⁵  

Chickens are often unable to carry out their natural behaviour such as pecking and dust bathing and often cannot even stretch their wings.  Lighting is kept deliberately low to discourage activity, leading to eyesight problems.  The lighting period is kept long to encourage the birds to eat more, denying them adequate time to rest.²

Broiler chickens are bred to put on weight extremely quickly:  most conventionally reared chickens go from hatching to reaching their slaughter weight in just six weeks.⁶ This abnormally fast growth rate puts massive strain on their body, leading to lameness and heart failure⁶.  Some die from starvation or thirst because they can no longer walk to their feeding areas, or from heat stress owing to the high temperature inside their shed.⁷   The sheds are not cleaned out during the chickens’ lifetime and as a result they suffer breast blisters and burns to their feet and legs from the ammonia produced by their own waste.²

At the age of six weeks the chickens are caught and transported to the slaughterhouse.  They are usually killed by being shackled upside down by their legs, which itself causes them pain and distress, stunned by immersing their heads in electrically charged water tanks and then killed by bleeding.⁸ Smaller birds or those who struggle in their shackles may miss the water bath and bleed to death while still conscious.⁸  A significant proportion are killed by gassing.  More than 10,000 birds per hour can be killed in some slaughter units, raising concerns about the handling of the animals.⁸