Julie Knopp
The meat industry uses selective breeding to make chickens grow unnaturally large, unnaturally fast. The practice causes immense suffering for millions of chickens on factory farms.
Many people know chickens simply as food. But the complex personalities of these feathered animals may surprise you.
Chickens are social beings with thoughts and emotions. Studies find that they can recognize and remember up to 100 faces. In the rare cases when chickens get to stay with their families, they pass down knowledge from generation to generation. Chickens also have the capacity for self-control, and research shows they will resist smaller food treats in anticipation of bigger rewards.
Sadly, our society sees most chickens as commodities, not sentient beings. Estimates suggest that more than 98% of chickens raised for eggs and meat in the US spend their lives in the dark, filthy confines of factory farms. These birds will never feel the grass under their feet or enjoy the pleasures of a dust bath.
From cramped, filthy cages to brutal slaughter at an early age, chickens endure many cruel practices on industrial farms. One widespread practice that causes immense suffering to birds is selective breeding. Selective breeding is the practice of choosing parents with specific traits intended to produce young with characteristics more desirable to the breeder. In an industry that values profit over animal welfare, selective breeding is a source of tremendous suffering for birds bred into existence for their flesh or eggs.
How Many Breeds Of Chicken Are There?
Hundreds of breeds of chickens exist. Poultry industries around the world vary on the particular number of breeds they recognize. Chicken breeds fall into four general categories: meat breeds, egg-laying breeds, dual-purpose (meat and egg), and exhibition or show breeds. Each breed has a unique physical appearance and personality traits.
What Are The Different Breeds Of Chickens?
Let's get to know a few well-known breeds of chicken:
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Rhode Island Red: These birds often have red or rust-colored feathers and are known as the "golden retrievers" of chickens due to their friendly and affectionate disposition.
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Silkies: These birds are known for their beautiful feathers, which can be so soft and fluffy that the birds may appear as if they have fur. While their feathers are often light in color, these birds are unique because their skin and bones are black. Silkies have a calm and trusting disposition.
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Cornish (Indian Game): These birds tend to have broad and muscular bodies. They are known as excellent parents, but aggressive birds—eager to protect their young and assert a position high in the pecking order.
The fate of chickens—whichever the breed—is often terribly grim. The poultry industry evaluates each bird's existence in terms of profit and loss—providing these chickens with a life worth living is not a priority. Despite their social and sentient nature, chickens are subjected to short and miserable lives.
What Is Selective Breeding?
Most people are aware of the terrible living conditions of animals in factory farms, but fewer people are aware of the suffering caused by a common poultry industry practice called selective breeding. Selective breeding occurs when a commercial breeder or farmer chooses certain animals to reproduce based on the desirable characteristics they possess. Breeders often seek to produce young with qualities that benefit the breeder, such as unnaturally fast growth to yield higher profits.
"After about five weeks, they are just too darn big to walk or even get up. So they just sit there."
How Does Selective Breeding Work?
In the poultry industry, commercial breeders and farmers aim to produce offspring who can yield higher quantities of meat or eggs. They choose larger birds to pair together for reproduction, with the intention that their genes are likely to produce young who will yield more meat or eggs. Since the industry often pays for birds per pound of flesh, selective breeding enables commercial breeders and farmers to earn more money for each bird they sell to a farm or slaughterhouse.
When Did Selective Breeding Of Chickens Start?
The practice of selective breeding has been around for thousands of years. In the United States, selective chicken breeding began accelerating in the 1960s. In the 1950s, an average chicken used for their meat—known in the industry as a "broiler" chicken—weighed about two pounds at 56 days old. Today, after decades of selective breeding, an individual bird of the same breed and age weighs in at more than nine pounds. According to Dr. Michael Lilburn, a professor at Ohio State University's Poultry Research Center: "If people keep eating more and more chicken, chickens will probably have to get even bigger."
How Do Farmers Use Selective Breeding To Produce Larger Chickens?
Commercial chicken breeders and farmers want birds to reach market weight as quickly as possible. Farmers can choose certain breeds of chicken that grow more quickly and require less food so they can earn more pay for their work to raise the chickens. Two expert authors on broiler chicken care summarize the situation like this:
“The situation has forced growers to make a choice. Is it more profitable to grow the biggest bird possible and have increased mortality due to heart attacks, ascites, and leg problems, or should birds be grown slower so that birds are smaller, but have fewer heart, lung and skeletal problems? (...) A large portion of growers’ pay is based on the pound of saleable meat produced, so simple calculations suggest that it is better to get the weight and ignore the mortality.”
The poultry industry has put farmers in the undesirable ethical quandary of deciding between better compensation for their work or improved welfare for birds.
What Are The Risks of Selectively Breeding Chickens?
Selective breeding has led to an unnatural growth rate which causes health problems and physical disabilities among chickens. Some of the common health conditions attributed to selective breeding include:
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Skeletal and metabolic disorders
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Tendon rupture
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Lesions
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Angular bone deformity
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Sudden Death Syndrome
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Tibial dyschondroplasia
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Leg problems
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Ascites
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Heart and circulatory disorders
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Heart attack
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Chronic hunger
Most notably, chickens' bodies have become so large that many birds struggle to move or even stand up. The authors of an article published in the journal Poultry Science compared the growth of modern chickens to a two-month-old human baby weighing 660 pounds. Pain and difficulty from walking can mean that some chickens are unable to make their way to food or water and can die from hunger or thirst. According to chicken farmer Carole Morison: "After about five weeks, they are just too darn big to walk or even get up. So they just sit there."
What you can do
Animal husbandry researcher Dr. John Webster states that the pain and disability associated with selective breeding "must constitute, in both magnitude and severity, the single most severe, systematic example of man's inhumanity to another sentient animal."
In the poultry industry, profit targets take priority over the health and wellness of birds with thoughts and feelings. Selective breeding is a tragic example of what can happen in an industry with no moral compass. Without federal laws to protect them, chickens need caring individuals like you to defend them. Ready to take action for animals today? Sign up for our Fast Action Network to protect birds and other animals from cruelty.
