A COK Report:
Animal Suffering in the Broiler Industry

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Broiler Breeders

Each year in the United States, approximately 60 million broiler chickens are used to breed other broilers. These "breeders" have the same genetic predisposition as other broilers for fast growth, lameness, and heart disease. If, like factory-farmed broilers, they were fed on unrestricted diets, only 20 percent would survive to sexual maturity.(61) Likewise, breeders are fed as little as a quarter of the amount of food they would otherwise eat.(62) Food restriction is believed to cause "general undernourishment, specific nutritional deficiency, and frustration."(63) The European Commission's Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare concluded that "current commercial food restriction of breeding birds causes poor welfare."(64)

Broiler breeders undergo a series of mutilations meant to reduce side effects of intensive confinement, such as disease and aggression. A portion of their beaks and toes are cut off, and males also have their combs and leg spurs removed. These mutilations are performed without anesthetic and are believed to cause both acute and chronic pain.(65)

To control the age of sexual maturity and reduce costs, producers may limit the amount of light breeders receive to as little as six hours per day. This darkness causes stress and frustration among birds, and increases the incidence of blindness, which can reach 30 percent.(66)

As a result of these and other insults to their welfare, breeders suffer from a variety of diseases and injuries during their lives. One study found that 92 percent of male breeders had pelvic limb lesions, 85 percent had total or partial rupture of ligaments or tendons, 54 percent had total ligament or tendon failure at one or more skeletal sites, and 16 percent had total detachment of the femoral head.(67)

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