Frequently Asked Questions

About chickens

  • It’s important to understand that life expectancy and slaughter age are different things. The biggest factor shaping a chicken’s life isn’t nature – it’s the industry they were bred for.

    Chickens raised for meat are slaughtered at just five weeks old – when it’s most profitable for producers. These breeds have been selectively bred to grow incredibly large, incredibly fast, reducing costs for producers.

    But for the chickens, it means their bodies simply can’t keep up. 

    Meat chicken breeds suffer from painful leg problems, heart conditions, and struggle to walk – all before they reach adulthood (around 20 weeks of age). Even if you took one home and gave them the very best veterinary care, they still usually wouldn’t survive past a few months old.

    In contrast, traditional chicken breeds, who aren’t bred for mass commercial production, can live for 10 years or more.

    It’s time for the industry to prioritise animal welfare over profit by switching to healthier, slower-growing breeds.

  • The chickens we know today originally descended from the red junglefowl - a wild bird native to Southeast Asia. Over thousands of years, humans selectively bred chickens for different purposes, creating an enormous variety of breeds with different appearances, behaviours, and traits.

    Today, there are more than 1,600 recognised chicken breeds worldwide - nearly four times the number of dog breeds.

    But Australia’s commercial meat industry relies almost entirely on just two fast-growing chicken breeds: Cobb and Ross. 

    These breeds were specifically bred to grow unnaturally fast and large in a very short amount of time. They are a human invention that began in the 1950s to increase productivity and lower costs. 

    It doesn’t have to be this way.

    By switching to higher welfare, slower-growing breeds, we can dramatically improve the lives of millions of chickens raised for meat.

  • Change happens when everyday people stand up and demand it. 

    If you eat chicken – or spend your hard-earned money at supermarkets, fast food chains, cafes, and restaurants that sell chicken – your choices and voice matter. Businesses pay attention to what their customers care about. That’s why public pressure is one of the most powerful tools we have to improve chicken welfare. 

    Here are a few ways you can help: 

    • Tell the supermarkets, restaurants, and food businesses you support that you have higher expectations for animal welfare and ask them to sign the Better Chicken Commitment 

    • Only choose chicken products from the highest welfare options available 

    • Stop or reduce your consumption of chicken products

    • Share information about chicken welfare with friends and family

    • Follow Better Chicken Australia on social media and help spread awareness.

    You can find out more about the latest actions you can take here. 

    We’ve already seen how consumer pressure for better animal welfare standards can lead to change – with the phase-out of battery-caged hens. Now, most eggs sold in Australia are cage-free. This only happened because people like you took action and demanded better!  

    Together, we can create the same change for chickens raised for meat.

    Every conversation, every action, and every person speaking up helps build momentum for higher welfare standards. Your voice is powerful, and chickens need people willing to use it.

The chicken industry

  • Chicken wasn’t always cheap. It used to be considered a special occasion meal in Australia. Today, however, it is the cheapest and most consumed meat in the country. 

    The reason chicken has become so cheap is a combination of industrialisation and genetics. This is more than factory farming. The chicken industry reshaped chickens through selective breeding into animals who grow at an unnaturally rapid rate and reach slaughter weight in a fraction of the time. They also switched to more nutrient dense food that supported the faster growth.

    This assembly-line-style model has made chicken cheap and convenient - by exploiting animals and sacrificing their welfare. 

    The industry also cut costs by building much bigger sheds and filling them with more and more chickens per square meter. 

    The true cost is borne by the chickens, whose bodies and behaviour are pushed beyond their natural limits. As chicken farming became more industrial and factory-like, the worse it became for animals. Chicken meat prices are subsidised by suffering.

  • Hormones have been illegal in Australian poultry production for over 50 years. 

    This means every chicken sold in Australia is technically “hormone free” – regardless of what the packaging says. It is a marketing term, not an animal welfare standard.

    The real issue is not hormones; it’s breeding. 

    Australian meat chickens are selectively bred to grow so fast and large, reaching slaughter weight in just five weeks. Their bodies often can’t cope with this rapid growth, leading to serious health problems, with the most common being painful leg disorders, heart and organ failure, and chronic suffering. 

    Antibiotics, on the other hand, are still used to treat sick birds. 

    When chickens are bred to grow at such extreme rates and raised in intensive farming systems, health problems are common – and that can mean more birds needing antibiotics. 

    Labels like “antibiotic-free” don’t necessarily tell you much about a chicken’s quality of life. A chicken can be hormone-free and antibiotic-free and still have spent their whole life in pain.

    The Better Chicken Commitment gets to the root of the problem by requiring a shift to healthier, slower growing breeds. These chickens grow at a rate their bodies can actually handle, so are less likely to get sick in the first place.

  • Compared to some countries, Australian standards are considered better. Being better, however, is not the same as having high standards. 

    Around the world, momentum is building for higher welfare chicken farming.

    Hundreds of major food companies across Europe and North America – including supermarkets, fast food chains, restaurants, hospitality companies, and chicken producers – have committed to the Better Chicken Commitment. Many have already begun transitioning to slower-growing breeds. On top of this, in some European countries, government and third-party animal welfare certifiers are also updating their standards to meet the Better Chicken Commitment.

    Meanwhile, Australia is falling behind.

    Most current standards and certifications – including the legal minimum, RSPCA’s indoor and free-range standards, Free Range Egg and Poultry Australia (FREPA) and Australian Certified Organic – continue to certify fast-growing breeds.

    But there’s good news.

    Recently, RSPCA Australia revised its Meat Chicken Standard. The new Standard includes a new level that requires higher welfare, slower growing breeds and meets the Better Chicken Commitment.

    The Better Chicken Commitment provides a clear pathway forward for Australia to catch up with the rest of the world.

  • When it comes to farmed animal welfare, Australian laws are weak and fall short of what most people would expect. Current national animal welfare standards permit practices that cause serious welfare problems. 

    The minimum legal standards for chickens raised for meat in Australia are set by the Model Code of Practice for the Welfare of Animals – Domestic Poultry. These standards permit meat chickens to be kept in crowded, stressful conditions with no requirement to provide perches or space to perform natural behaviours like foraging. They also have no requirements for breed welfare.

    A new national standard, the Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Poultry, was endorsed by State and Territory governments in 2022. It is only slightly better than the previous Code. It still doesn’t require farmers to provide perches for meat chickens or give them enough space to move around freely. What’s more, these standards haven’t yet been implemented in all states and territories, and until that’s done, they can’t be enforced.

    Australian standards lag far behind community expectations and the best animal welfare science. We can’t rely on government regulation to protect chickens from suffering. This is why it is so important for food businesses to sign up to the Better Chicken Commitment. The BCC sets clear, science-backed requirements paired with third-party certified standards: a guarantee that the chicken on your menu came from a bird who actually lived a better life.

Chicken welfare

  • Meat chickens are genetically selected to grow too big and fast, often causing chronic pain and serious health issues. Many are farmed in overcrowded sheds with little space, light, or fresh air, and limited opportunity to do the things chickens enjoy – like scratching, perching, dust bathing, or exploring. Then they are killed using outdated, inhumane methods.  

    Fast-growing breeds

    The breeds of chickens used for meat in Australia have been genetically selected to grow so unnaturally fast and large that their bodies often can’t cope.

    Many struggle to stand or walk under their own body weight. They suffer from painful leg injuries, skin burns, bone deformities, metabolic diseases, and heart conditions. Many die before they even reach slaughter age.

    These fast-growing chicken breeds are designed to maximise meat production and profit at the cost of chicken welfare. 

    Intensive living conditions

    Modern chicken farming involves tens of thousands of birds packed into sheds at high densities. Many never experience natural light or fresh air. They often don’t have enough room to move freely or express natural behaviours like scratching around or dust bathing. 

    The combination of unhealthy fast-growing breeds in low welfare conditions can lead to sick, stressed and suffering birds.

    Inhumane slaughter

    Many Australian chicken slaughterhouses still use outdated, inhumane methods. 

    Chickens are hung upside down by their legs in shackles and dipped into an electrified water bath for stunning. This process is terrifying and painful, as well as unreliable - chickens desperately flapping to try to escape can miss the electrified water bath, leaving them fully conscious when their throats are slit.

    The Better Chicken Commitment includes requirements to address each of these three key aspects of chicken welfare.

  • Chicken welfare is one of the biggest animal welfare issues in Australia – and one of the least recognised.

    Chickens are the most farmed land animal on earth. Here in Australia, over 750 million chickens are raised and slaughtered for meat each year. That’s more than fifteen times the number of all cattle, sheep, lambs, and pigs put together. Australians are the world’s third-largest consumer of chicken meat per person.

    The scale is enormous. But chickens are individual animals, with needs and wants, behaviours, and personalities. Chickens can form friendships with others, enjoy exploring and dust bathing, and experience comfort, joy, fear, pain, and stress, like other animals.

    But for most chickens raised for meat in Australia, life is shaped by an intensive farming system that prioritises fast growth and high production over animal welfare. 

    They’re bred to grow too big, too fast, causing serious and painful health problems. They don’t get enough space, light, or fresh air, and they are killed using outdated, inhumane methods.

    Studies have measured just how significant the impact of breed can be on their suffering. The Welfare Footprint Institute found that fast-growing chickens suffer much more extreme pain across the course of their lives than slower-growing chickens. They found that adopting the Better Chicken Commitment in full reduces time spent experiencing the most and second-most severe categories of pain on average by 80% and 65%, respectively.

    This is why improving chicken welfare has the potential to reduce suffering on a massive scale. The Better Chicken Commitment focuses on the areas that matter most for chicken welfare – breed, living conditions and slaughter – because these changes can dramatically improve the lives of millions of chickens every year.

  • The chickens used for meat are very different from backyard chickens. They’re specialised breeds created to grow as fast as possible, with as much breast muscle as possible. This is because it is more profitable to send ‘meatier’ birds to slaughter in a shorter amount of time. But that efficiency comes at a severe cost to the animals themselves.

    In Australia, almost every chicken raised for meat is one of these fast-growing breeds. They reach slaughter weight (around 2kg) in just 38 days. 

    Fast-growing chickens are so disproportionately big and top-heavy that they often struggle to stand and walk. If they fall over onto their backs, they may be unable to get up to reach food or water.

    Painful bone deformities, lameness, heart problems, and organ failure are common – and many die before they even reach slaughter age. These chickens are not designed to live long, healthy lives. They’re designed to grow fast and die young. 

    If you took one of these chickens home and gave them the best vet care, they still wouldn't live a long life. Their bodies simply are not made to cope with their own body weight.

  • In Australia, "free range" chicken meat has no clear legal definition and is largely vague and unregulated. In most cases, when you see the term free-range with no other label, it typically means that the chickens had some access to the outdoors. 

    Third-party certification is a more meaningful guarantee that chickens actually have access to the outdoors. For example, both RSPCA Certified (formerly RSPCA Approved) outdoor access and FREPA (Free Range Egg and Poultry Association) standards require chicken shed doors to be open to an outdoor area for at least 8 hours a day, and the outside area must be at least the size of the indoor area. See our detailed breakdown for more about free-range chicken farming standards.

    Is free range much better for animal welfare? It depends. Free-range and organic chicken farms use the same inhumane, fast-growing chicken breeds as conventional farms, which means birds often struggle to move because of the unnatural speed at which they grow.

    While free-range chickens have access to more space, natural light, and behavioural enrichment, it’s hard for them to access these benefits due to physical constraints and pain caused by their breed. Improving living conditions without switching to higher welfare, slower growing breeds is only a small improvement for chicken welfare.

    There is one exception. The latest RSPCA Meat Chicken Standard includes a new level that requires higher welfare, slower growing breeds, in addition to outdoor access. When retailers and food businesses sign up to the Better Chicken Commitment, this new standard now provides the pathway for replacing fast growing birds with higher welfare breeds in their supply chains. 

  • In Australia, it’s illegal to import fresh chicken meat for biosecurity reasons. Cooked chicken meat can be imported only under strict health and safety conditions. Less than 0.5% of Australia’s chicken comes from other countries.

    Almost all of Australia’s chicken meat supply is produced in Australia and is consumed in Australia. This means that the welfare of these chickens is completely under Australian control.  What you demand has a direct impact on what the industry is required to deliver. 

  • Chicken sold in Australian supermarkets comes from large factory farming companies called “chicken producers”. Like the supermarket duopoly, most of Australia’s chicken comes from two companies - Inghams and Baiada. The rest mostly comes from a handful of medium-sized producers: Hazeldene’s, Turosi, Golden Cockerel, and Cordina.

    Big chicken producers want to grow meat cheap and fast. They prioritise profits over animal welfare. And they all use inhumane, fast-growing chicken breeds.

    Right now, every single chicken sold by Coles, Woolworths, and Aldi is a fast-growing breed. This is true regardless of animal welfare certification - free-range chickens sold in supermarkets are the exact same fast-growing breeds.

    Even smaller supermarket chains that choose to sell only free-range and organic chicken (like Harris Farm Markets and Flannery’s) are selling the same fast-growing chickens.

    No matter what label you look for, currently, you will only find meat from chickens bred to grow too big, too fast. Their own bodies are an animal welfare failure.

The Better Chicken Commitment

  • The Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) is a global initiative launched in 2016 by a coalition of leading animal welfare organisations. Its goal is to set higher animal welfare requirements for chickens raised for meat and to drive food companies worldwide to adopt them.

    Based on over 150 scientific studies, the BCC identifies the most critical welfare issues facing chickens raised for meat and sets requirements to meaningfully improve them.  The Better Chicken Commitment calls for: 

    • Higher welfare, slower growing chicken breeds 

    • Comfortable, healthy living conditions, where each chicken has enough space, light and fresh air 

    • More humane slaughter methods, with effective stunning and no live shackling

    You can read more about the specifics of the BCC and why these changes are so important here.

    Companies that adopt the BCC commit to introducing higher welfare standards for all meat chickens in their supply chain. By pledging to make these changes, food businesses help to create systemic change, improving the lives of millions of birds.

    Over 640 food companies around the world have already signed the Better Chicken Commitment. However, Australia is lagging behind, leaving millions of birds to suffer every year. That’s why we formed Better Chicken Australia.

    Join us to call on your supermarkets, restaurants, and food suppliers to commit to higher welfare standards in their chicken supply chains.

    If you're a food business interested in signing up to the Better Chicken Commitment, get in touch, and we’ll help you through the process.

  • While RSPCA Australia recognises that there are significant welfare problems with the way meat chickens are farmed, including those that are RSPCA Certified, they have not formally endorsed the Better Chicken Commitment.

    Recently, RSPCA Australia revised its Meat Chicken Standard. The base requirements for RSPCA Certified indoor and free-range chicken, still do not meet the Better Chicken Commitment. However, the Standard now includes a new level that requires higher welfare, slower growing breeds and provides a pathway for businesses to meet the Better Chicken Commitment.

    Across Australia and around the world, other major animal protection organisations are united in support of the Better Chicken Commitment. These include:

    • Anima International

    • Animal Equality

    • Animals Australia 

    • Compassion in World Farming 

    • Four Paws

    • Humane World for Animals

    • The Humane League

    • Mercy for Animals

    • World Animal Protection

  • The RSPCA Meat Chicken Standard was recently updated to include a new level that requires higher welfare, slower growing breeds and provides a pathway for food businesses to meet the Better Chicken Commitment.

    However, the base requirements for RSPCA Certified indoor and free-range chickens do not meet the Better Chicken Commitment.

    What this means is that an RSPCA Certified label does not require meeting the Better Chicken Commitment. RSPCA Certified chickens can still be genetically selected for rapid growth, resulting in serious health and welfare issues.

    The base RSPCA Meat Chicken Standard already meets several other requirements of the BCC, including for litter, ammonia levels and perches. By 2031, all RSPCA Certified chicken will also meet the Better Chicken Commitment’s requirements for slaughter. 

    But the RSPCA’s new slower-growing breed level addresses the most important change chickens need - healthy breeding.

  • Shopping for food can be a confusing experience, with many different labels and animal welfare claims to choose from. Misleading marketing only adds to the uncertainty faced by shoppers who want to make more humane choices. 

    The short answer is that there are no commercially available products currently available that fully meet the standards of the Better Chicken Commitment. Until that happens, there are still ways to make informed choices.  

    To have any assurance that chickens are getting better than the minimum legal standards, you need to ensure the product you are buying is certified by a welfare scheme.

    There are three main chicken certification labels in Australia: RSPCA Certified (formerly RSPCA Approved), Australian Certified Organic and Accredited Free Range. Over 90% of Australia’s chicken meat is RSPCA Certified.

    We’ve produced a quick guide comparing these standards to the Better Chicken Commitment – you can find the guide here.

    There is only one certification standard that provides a pathway to meet the Better Chicken Commitment. 

    The RSPCA Meat Chicken Standard contains a new level that requires higher welfare, slower growing breeds. However, the RSPCA’s base and free-range requirements still allow inhumane fast-growing chicken breeds.

    And there’s not yet any chicken available to buy that actually meets RSPCA Certified’s new level.

    But if voting with your wallet isn’t really an option yet, how can you tell food businesses what you want them to change?

    That’s where Better Chicken Australia comes in. 

    Two easy actions you can do right now to help chickens are: 

    • Visit our action hub for the latest ways you can call on food businesses to adopt the Better Chicken Commitment

    • Spread the word – most Aussies are unaware of how bad life is for our chickens, and, like you, will want better welfare standards 

  • Breed welfare is the biggest cause of chicken suffering on factory farms. However, it’s not the only serious problem with current standards. In order to truly improve the lives of chickens, there must be changes made across their entire lifespan: the way they are bred, their living conditions, and how they are killed.

    The Better Chicken Commitment is based on contemporary animal welfare and veterinary science. It is a policy focused on addressing the most important animal welfare issues that impact chickens raised for meat. Research shows that these are:

    • Breed welfare

    • Living conditions (including stocking density, light, and environmental enrichment)

    • Slaughter method

    Breed

    Breed is crucial because it impacts everything about a chicken’s physical wellbeing. Without healthy genetics, chickens may not benefit from other animal welfare improvements even if they are available.

    Living Conditions

    It’s easy to understand why the size and quality of living space are so important. That’s why more and more Australians choose free-range chicken. However, current laws and standards don’t provide enough space, especially as chickens grow in size. The BCC requires a lower stocking density, which means more space to move around.

    Like us, chickens need some natural sunlight for physical and mental health. Chickens who don’t have access to outdoor areas need good lighting inside sheds. Currently, producers are allowed to keep light levels low to prevent chickens from spending energy on exercise and to keep food costs low. But this is cruel.

    Environmental enrichment means opportunities to run, scratch, peck and perch. These core behavioural needs are crucial for both their physical and mental wellbeing. In chicken sheds, this means perches and platforms, interesting objects to peck at, and litter they can dust bathe in. 

    Slaughter

    The way an animal is handled and stunned before slaughter has a huge impact on how much they suffer. Many Australian chicken slaughterhouses still use outdated, inhumane methods. The Better Chicken Commitment requires using more reliable methods that minimise suffering, such as controlled atmosphere stunning. This is the method already used for over half of Australia’s meat chickens.

    Together, the requirements of the Better Chicken Commitment are proven by animal welfare science to make a huge difference in the lives of chickens raised for meat.

  • You might be wondering, why are we asking food businesses to take responsibility for animal welfare in factory farms? Why not focus on getting the government to strengthen animal welfare laws? Or educate individual consumers about how to make more ethical choices?

    Governments are slow to act on animal welfare. Corporations can change what they do much faster - and laws are just one of the tools we can use to get that change. Many companies commit to change through direct engagement from organisations like Better Chicken Australia, and respond to public pressure from people like you.

    This is why:

    • Norway’s industry committed to phase out fast-growing chicken breeds by 2027

    • France’s entire supermarket sector signed up to the Better Chicken Commitment

    • Major UK supermarket Waitrose beat its own deadline to switch its chicken over to 100% BCC-compliance

    This is also how Australia’s battle against the battery cage is winning. Over 80% of Australia’s eggs are now cage-free because animal advocacy organisations and the public demanded it, and supermarkets and restaurants responded to the demand. Meanwhile, state and territory governments are only just beginning to work on laws to phase out battery cages.

    We can’t wait for the government. Chickens need help now. And getting food businesses to lead change now will build momentum towards stronger animal welfare laws.

  • There is no single determination of halal - the word simply means it’s consistent with Islamic principles. Like with any religion, how these principles are interpreted and put into practice varies.

    One key interpretation of halal is that pre-slaughter stunning methods must be reversible. This means that the animal can recover from the stun if not slaughtered. Whether or not a specific pre-slaughter stunning method is considered halal depends on the specific halal certifier. 

    The majority of chickens slaughtered in Australia use halal methods, although they may not be specifically labeled as halal.

    Meeting the BCC’s requirements doesn’t tell you whether or not a product is halal - you will also need to look for certification that matches your religious values.

    Within Islamic scholarship, there is a growing conversation around the concept of “tayyib” - an Arabic word meaning "good," "pure," or "wholesome." Halal sets the minimum standard for permissibility, but tayyib goes further. For some Muslims, tayyib is about food produced with genuine care and regard for the animal's wellbeing throughout its life. The Better Chicken Commitment speaks directly to the principle of tayyib. 

Still have questions?

Contact us and we’ll get in touch.