What Are Broiler Chickens and How Long Do They Live?

What are broiler chickens?

Broiler chickens are chickens raised specifically for meat. Generally a hybrid of breeds designed to grow rapidly, broiler chickens are widespread within factory farms around the world.

What's the difference between broilers and layers?

To produce huge amounts of meat and eggs as efficiently (and cheaply) as possible, the modern factory farming industry relies on a practice called selective breeding. Over decades, farmers have bred animals to possess certain traits, such as a rapid growth rate or ability to lay large amounts of eggs. Today, there are two types of chickens raised on factory farms: "broilers," or chickens raised for meat, and "layers," or hens raised to lay eggs.

Broiler chickens have been selectively bred to possess certain desirable traits, such as growing larger breast muscles, which are later sold as “white meat” or “chicken breasts.” Layers, or egg-laying chickens, are used by egg-producing facilities and have been selectively bred to produce unnaturally high volumes of eggs.

Broiler chicken breeds

There are hundreds of diverse species of chickens—all with varying sizes, characteristics, and beautiful feather patterns. However, only a few breeds of broiler chickens are used on factory farms today.

Sadly, this selective breeding has resulted in serious health concerns for chickens. Many are unable to walk or even stand, instead spending their lives lying in filth that burns their legs and skin. Some experience heart complications and die before they're even a few weeks old.

How are broiler chickens raised?

To understand what these animals experience, let's follow a broiler chicken throughout her life.

A broiler chicken begins her life in a hatchery, where thousands and thousands of eggs are incubated and hatched. She'll never get to see her parents, since they're kept in separate breeding facilities.

When she's about a day old, she'll be placed onto a conveyor belt to be vaccinated through a spray or injection. Then, the conveyor belt will drop her into a transport crate about the size of a large desk drawer. Packed in with thousands of other chicks, her crate will be stacked in a truck for transport to the "grow-out facility." This is where she's destined to spend the majority of her short life.

Grow-out barns are typically large, windowless sheds where chickens are kept indoors at all times. These sheds can accommodate hundreds of thousands of birds; in 2012, the average broiler farm in California and Nebraska exceeded 500,000 birds.

A broiler chicken will never see the light of day or feel the fresh air. She'll spend the remaining weeks of her life packed tightly with other birds, suffering health issues due to her unnatural growth rate. If she lives to six or seven weeks old, she'll finally leave the warehouse—only to endure a brutal slaughter in her final moments.

Upon reaching the slaughterhouse, she'll be shackled upside down, terrified and struggling to breathe. She'll be passed through an electrified bath, meant to stun her before she is slit by the throat. If she is stunned improperly (as thousands of chickens are every year), she may even be boiled alive.

How long do broiler chickens live?

Generally speaking, chickens can live for many years. Matilda, a Red Pyle chicken, broke a Guinness World Record for the world’s oldest living chicken, reaching the age of 16 years. Even though Matilda’s lifespan was exceptional, the typical lifespan of backyard chickens can be between 5-12 years.

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The lives of broiler chickens are cut drastically short.

But within industrial agriculture scenarios, the lives of broiler chickens are cut drastically short. Birds can be slaughtered anywhere from 21 days to 170 days old. In the US, the typical slaughter age is 47 days, while in the EU the slaughter age is 42 days.

Despite the fact that these birds can appear full-grown due to their accelerated growth, factory-farmed birds are still essentially chicks when they are killed. This is just one of a number of health, welfare, and environmental issues created by raising broiler chickens on factory farms.

Do broiler chickens lay eggs?

Yes, broiler hens can lay eggs. Known as parent birds, stock breeders, or broiler breeders, chickens who lay and fertilize eggs destined for broiler farms are integral to the poultry industry.

As chicks, broiler breeders are often put through various mutilations, such as beak trimming and comb dubbing, where portions of their beak and comb (crest) are removed. Broiler breeders are kept in facilities similar to grow-out barns for regular broiler chickens, in mixed-sex flocks to allow for natural mating behavior and fertilizing. Eggs are collected and sent to hatcheries, where the lives of broiler chickens begin.

Welfare issues

Within any concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO)—regardless of the species being farmed—the conditions are so unnatural that they give rise to a host of welfare issues. But broiler chickens endure some of the cruelest abuses of any animal. Sequestered in tight, indoor quarters for the duration of their lives, they meet their demise via live-shackle slaughter, which is known to cause significant suffering. Below are just a few of the factors that cause serious welfare issues in the broiler industry.

Crowding

In the wild, chickens live in small flocks, often with their own chicks. But broiler chicken sheds look very different. These facilities often accommodate tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of birds in every shed. Chickens are kept in such high concentrations that each bird only has as much space as a single piece of lined paper on which to live her entire life. Being crowded so tightly inhibits their movements, preventing them from getting proper exercise. Since they're often trampled by other birds while lying down, they don't even get the opportunity to rest.

Transport

Broiler chickens are transported twice in their lives: once as chicks, when they are transferred from hatcheries to grow-out barns, and finally from barns to the slaughterhouse at around 47 days old. Transport crates are about the size of large desk drawers, and they don't give birds enough space to be transported comfortably or safely.

Transportation is known to be a significant source of stress for birds at both stages of their lives. A traumatic experience en route to the grow-out barn—marred by thirst, hunger, and/or uncomfortable temperatures—can result in hindered growth and increased risk of illness as birds continue to grow. The crowded, cramped conditions of transport crates are only made worse by the psychological stress of a foreign environment.

Slaughter

Among the most common techniques used to kill broiler chickens is live-shackle slaughter—notorious for being the greatest cause of animal suffering in slaughterhouses. Birds are hung upside down and their legs are locked into metal clamps, which often results in broken bones. A conveyor belt then dunks them into an electrified bath of water meant to stun the birds before their throats are slit, and their bodies are thrown into a scalding bath to remove their feathers.

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Many birds remain conscious for the later stages of slaughter.

Many birds manage to avoid the electrified bath or are not entirely stunned by it, meaning they remain conscious for the later stages of slaughter.

Bird health issues

Many health issues that arise in broiler chickens originate from the selective breeding process, during which certain breeds of chickens are selected and bred to grow unnaturally fast. While rapid growth might be ideal for companies’ production schedules and profits, it causes a host of painful and debilitating conditions for broiler chickens.

The Better Chicken Commitment encourages companies to commit to purchasing chickens from suppliers that do not make use of rapid-growth breeds. More than 185 companies have signed the commitment so far.

Cardiovascular dysfunction

Broiler chickens are particularly prone to cardiovascular dysfunction, including heart failure. Sudden death syndrome and ascites syndrome are the most common heart conditions within conventional broiler flocks. Heart dysfunction is largely prevalent due to rapid growth and selective breeding, as well as overeating, which is encouraged since larger birds bring in more money for companies. Heart arrhythmias can also be caused by a number of factors, including stress or other diseases.

Skeletal dysfunction

The skeletons of conventional broiler chickens can cause many painful conditions. Within rapid growth breeds, the bird’s body puts on more flesh weight faster than the skeleton can accommodate, resulting in health problems such as angular bone deformities. These deformities begin to develop in chicks as young as 6 days old and prevent them from reaching food or water, leading to prolonged death by starvation.

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The selective breeding of broiler chickens puts an unnatural strain on their skeletal systems.

The selective breeding of broiler chickens to grow larger breasts also puts an unnatural strain on their skeletal systems. The heavier weight of breast muscles, and overall larger body weight, can put stress on the legs and cause tibial dyschondroplasia, leading to lameness.

Integument lesions

Lesions tend to form on the breasts, feet, and the hock (ankle joint). These painful lumps and sores, called integument lesions, are the result of chickens coming into prolonged contact with their own feces, which are very high in ammonia.

Integument lesions also form because of a lack of physical activity, which is caused by overcrowding. Chickens' inability to move around often leads to other physical deformities, such as skeletal lameness, which further restrict the birds’ activity.

Environmental issues

Chicken waste is a primary culprit when it comes to environmental pollution from poultry factories. The waste generates harmful greenhouse gas emissions, most notably ammonia, methane, and sulfur dioxide. Factory farms also cause water pollution, including eutrophication—which occurs when a high load of nutrients decreases oxygen levels in a body of water, resulting in the mass death of marine life—and acidification.

Ammonia

Ammonia is a toxic gas generated by waste that can cause serious illnesses for birds and farmworkers alike. On factory farms, broiler chickens develop ammonia lesions when they come into frequent contact with their own waste—something that happens frequently given the crowded conditions. When inhaled, high concentrations of ammonia can cause inflammation in birds and farmworkers, and it has been shown to impair metabolism, induce cell apoptosis, and cause mitochondrial damage to the intestinal tract.

Production and consumption statistics

Below are some striking statistics about the production of broiler chickens in the US.

• In 2021 alone, 9.2 billion broiler chickens were slaughtered.
• In March of 2019, the average slaughter weight of a chicken in the US was 6.2 pounds. In the 1920s, average slaughter weight was just 2.5 pounds.
• There are over 500,000 birds housed on a typical factory farm.
• Americans consume about 96.5 pounds of chicken per capita.

Conclusion

So many of the hardships broiler chickens endure are obscured from public knowledge, because the pressure to improve animal welfare always comes at a cost for factory farming corporations. But change is necessary to reduce the harms inflicted on these birds by conventional farming practices. Hopefully, businesses will continue to recognize this by signing the Better Chicken Commitment—because broiler chickens, like all animals, deserve better.