Modern chickens bred for meat have been genetically selected to grow a lot faster than they used to. There has been some media coverage of how this genetic selection impacts the chickens who ultimately end up on people’s plates, such as the skeletal, heart, muscle, and behavioural issues associated with fast growth. What these birds’ parents endure in modern broiler production has, however, largely remained invisible – even though it is one of the most striking and troubling aspects of the system.
Though their offspring are the very picture of satiety and over-indulgence, due to their speedy growth and large size, parent birds’ lives are marked by hunger and deprivation. What these breeder birds must endure is “probably the biggest animal welfare problem we have in all animal husbandry,” says Per Jensen, professor of animal behavior at Sweden’s Linköping University.
In 2024/25, I worked with a team of European journalists to investigate how the poultry industry manages these consequences to protect profits, while promoting itself as “responsible”, and to document mounting public opposition to megafarms filled with these fast-growing chickens.
The project was supported by Journalismfund Europe. You can read about it in full here.
I co-authored two stories produced in the project. One was published by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and co-written by its chief environment correspondent, Andrew Wasley: Coming home to roost: residents rise up against UK chicken megafarms. The other was co-written with fellow project team members, Axelle Playoust Braure and Paul Tullis, and published in Bloomberg Businessweek: How Generations of Selective Breeding Created Miserable Chickens.
Image is my own and depicts public opposition to a proposal for broiler chicken breeding units being built in Thelnetham, Suffolk.
