Facts about chickens

• Chickens are much smarter than they are given credit for. They can figure out puzzles and recognise at least 100 different faces
• They are highly social individuals, forming complex bonds and hierarchies, with lifelong friendships
• Chickens naturally live to around 12 years old
• During sleep, chickens experience rapid eye movement (REM), the period of time when dreaming, learning and memorising is most common
• Cockerels perform dances to impress hens called 'tidbitting', often to show high resource areas such as food sources. They will pick up and drop food next to a hen, as bobbing their heads, all in a bid to impress the ladies

SUFFERING THAT’S OFF THE SCALES 

The ‘broiler’ industry is animal agriculture’s most destructive and harmful sector, causing suffering that is Off the Scales.

The build-up of disease contaminated faeces and spread of zoonotic illnesses like Bird Flu in chicken farms also creates breeding grounds for our next pandemic, accelerates antibiotic resistance and destroys our environment. The mass-scale exploitation of chickens must be stopped before it’s too late.

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CHICKEN FARMING TODAY

There are nearly 800 US-style ‘mega farms’ in the UK according to a 2017 investigation by The Guardian.

Some counties in the UK are ‘hotspots’ for vast, industrial mega farms. Lincolnshire, for example, has more than 12 million intensively-farmed chickens living in sheds with over 40,000 birds. Even free-range farms house tens of thousands of individuals, which is why The Foul Truth campaign can make a huge impact.

More than 50 billion chickens are reared annually as a source of food, for both their meat and their eggs. The number of farmed birds in the UK justifies the importance of our Off the Scales campaign, which exposes the immense suffering endured on intensive and 'free-range' chickens.

BROILER CHICKENS

1.18 billion ‘broiler’ chickens are killed in the UK each year for meat.

95% of chickens reared for meat in the UK are intensively reared, bred to grow big and fast, and seven out of the ten largest poultry farms house more than 1 million birds. Chickens live in vast, stinking sheds crammed in with tens of thousands of other birds. The scale is vast, and horrific.

Chickens from the remaining farms are labelled ‘free-range’, though they also live in industrial-scale sheds and are likely never to venture outdoors. Even on free-range broiler farms, birds rarely go outside, which means tens of thousands of birds are prevented from expressing natural behaviour, instead living their whole lives in vast, brightly-lit sheds.

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Lifespan

Chickens can live for six or more years under natural conditions. However, those used in intensive farming will commonly be slaughtered before they reach six weeks old.

‍WELFARE ISSUES

On both intensive and free-range chicken farms the health and well-being of chickens is severely compromised by rapid growth, overcrowding in filthy conditions, and barren environments. Chickens also suffer injury and stress through rough handling during catching, transport and slaughter.

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All farmed chickens end up at the slaughterhouse, where they are either live-shackled or gassed to death. Before slaughter, chickens may experience unnecessary suffering and pain due to the abnormal position of being shackled upside down, which causes fear and stress, as well as the painful compression of their legs by the shackles.

See for yourself the first UK investigation inside a chicken slaughterhouse, and learn what ‘free-range’ means.

Watch our RSPCA free-range investigation.

Read more about our chicken investigations.