The Chicken Flesh Industry: Breeder Chickens

Ammonia from the large amount of feces in the shed burned the feathers off this chicken and caused a massive skin lesion.

The breeding animals who give birth to the 9 billion broiler chickens killed in the U.S. were referred to as gallus neglectedus, or “neglected chickens,” by Dr. Joy Mench, a poultry scientist at the University of California, because their welfare is completely ignored.²⁰ Like the broiler chickens to whom they give birth, breeder chickens are confined in filthy sheds without access to sunlight, fresh air, or anything else that they would enjoy in nature.

When they are young, hot blades are used to cut large chunks off of their sensitive beaks so that they won’t peck each other out of frustration caused by the intense confinement. Sometimes their toes, spurs, and combs are also cut off. The birds are not given any painkillers to ease the agony of this mutilation, and many debeaked chickens starve to death because they are in too much pain to eat.

Male broiler breeders have plastic rods stuck through their delicate nasal cavities to prevent them from eating the females' food.

Breeder chickens are forced to live on factory farms for more than a year. Because they live so much longer, they face an even higher risk of organ failure and death as they grow larger and larger. In an attempt to fix this problem, the industry drastically limits the feed given to breeding birds, keeping the animals in a constant state of hunger and frustration. When the birds drink more water to try to relieve their hunger, factory farm operators often reduce the available drinking water so that they won’t have to clean up wet manure.²¹ Some farmers shove thin plastic rods through the delicate nasal cavities of male breeding birds. The rods stick out of both sides of their faces, preventing them from reaching through the wire barrier to eat the females’ food.

After more than a year of deprivation and confinement, the bodies of these breeding birds are too worn out to produce enough chicks for the farmer to sell. Frail and exhausted, they are loaded onto trucks and sent to slaughter.

Read about the egg industry.

²⁰ “Feed Restriction: A Welfare Program of the Industry’s Own Making,” 2004.
²¹ C.J. Savory, P.M. Hocking, J.S. Mann, and M.H. Maxwell, “Is Broiler Breeder Welfare Improved by Using Qualitative Rather Than Qualitative Food Restriction to Limit Growth Rate?” Animal Welfare, 1996, p. 106.