While most of the attention on chicken welfare in Australia is on egg layers, now is the time to shift that dial and create a better living standard for meat chickens or broilers.
A barrier burning away in the background is a gob-smacking low level of public awareness about meat chicken welfare.
Most poultry purchasers don’t know the difference between meat chickens and layers.
So, correcting that is what welfare lobbyists need to crack before they can successfully shift shoppers to change their buying decisions when it comes to chicken meat.
Indeed, the suffering of chickens raised for meat is one of the biggest, but least recognised, animal welfare problems in Australia.
Promisingly, Better Chicken Australia (BCA), the latest phase of the Better Chicken Commitment campaign and backed by Australian Alliance for Animals, World Animal Protection and Animals Aotearoa, is all about raising the welfare of our meat chickens.
A global policy initiative, Better Chicken Commitment targets the most significant welfare issues facing chickens raised for meat, including transitioning to healthier, slower growing breeds, improving living conditions and adopting more humane slaughter methods.
Rather than targeting Australian governments, often slow to enact superior welfare standards, the BCA campaign calls on food businesses and retailers to lead the charge in improving chicken welfare in the Australian meat industry.
The BCA offers a pathway for businesses to align with the expectations of informed Australian consumers, while also promoting transparency about their progress and actions.
There are already more than 600 commitments to the Better Chicken Commitment across the United States, Europe and New Zealand.
- New Zealand and Australia: nine companies, including Domino’s, Hello Fresh, Marley Spoon, and My Food Bag, have committed.
- United States: more than 200 commitments, including Burger King, Subway, Chipotle, and Nestle.
- Europe: more than 370 commitments to the Better Chicken Commitment, pledging to introduce higher welfare criteria for all the chickens in their supply chain by 2026.
Of the 700 million chickens annually raised and slaughtered for meat in Australia, most are fast-growing breeds, genetically selected to grow to an unnatural size at extreme rates.
These breeds are linked to a suite of serious welfare problems including leg deformities, lameness, skin infections, and heart conditions, according to Alliance for Animals’ Co-Founder and Strategy Director, Bidda Jones.
AUTHOR’S VIEW: My understanding is chickens are sentient with a very similar range of feelings as mammalian species. They can (and do) suffer by feeling pain, fear and stress.
Therefore, committing to better lives and a better end of life for meat chickens meets my aspirations.
