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Suffering chickens prefer feed containing painkillers

 

Millions of chickens reared for meat in the UK opt for feed mixed with

painkillers to alleviate their suffering, the RSPCA said.

 

Research commissioned by the charity that was published in a scientific form

in the Veterinary Record last month and has just been released in a consumer

friendly form, found that, when given the choice, lame broiler chickens

deliberately ate feed treated with painkiller, while healthy birds tended to

avoid it.

 

More than 700 million broiler, or young chickens, are reared in the UK each

year. They are selectively bred by the poultry industry for fast growth rate

and rapid weight gain, which can result in lameness and premature death.

 

In the drive for improved efficiency, broilers are often kept in cramped

conditions with more than 20 birds per square metre, which restricts their

movement and can exacerbate leg problems.

 

Caroline Le Sueur, of the RSPCA's farm animals department, said: 'This

latest RSPCA-funded research demonstrates that birds not only became lame

but also experienced pain. Due to the severity of the problems and the

numbers involved, lameness in broilers is clearly one of the most serious

welfare issues affecting farm animals today.'

 

She stressed that in 1992 a study showed that 25 per cent of UK broiler

chickens were lame. In the same year the government's own advisory body, the

Farm Animal Welfare Council, stated that levels of leg problems were

unacceptable and cramped conditions needed to be controlled.

 

Ms Le Sueur continued: 'Yet eight years later this matter has still not been

properly addressed across the industry as a whole. The RSPCA has devised

strict welfare standards for chickens within its farm animal welfare

assurance scheme, Freedom Food.'

 

Freedom Food producers must provide more space for their birds to move

around in, a maximum of 15 birds per square metre, and encourage birds to

express natural behaviours such as foraging and dust bathing.

 

Ms Le Sueur said: 'A report produced by the European Commission's scientific

veterinary committee earlier this month stated that stocking rates above

Freedom Food levels were likely to lead to a marked increase in lameness.

The industry must place a greater priority on selecting healthy birds rather

than choosing those which will grow to large sizes in the quickest time.'