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Over 800 million chickens are reared for their meat in the UK each year. The majority of these chickens are reared to standards the RSPCA believes are unacceptably low and offer the chickens a poor quality of life.
The RSPCA is working hard to bring about urgent and much needed improvements in conditions for farmed chickens.
Our RSPCA chicken challenge
Back in January 2008, we challenged all British supermarkets to be the first to only stock higher welfare chicken by 2010. This year we’ve added some more challenges to our campaign:
- To agree clear labelling definitions for different types of indoor reared chicken
- To get these labelling definitions agreed in EU law
- To increase the volume of higher welfare chicken used within the restaurant and catering trade.
About chickens
Meat chickens – also referred to as ‘broilers’ - are by far the most numerous farm animal produced for their meat in the UK. Over 800 million chickens are reared here each year!
Chicken is now a regular part of many of people’s diets. It is this consumer demand for plentiful cheap chicken and supermarket price wars that are pushing farmers to supply cheap mass-produced meat.
The most cost-effective way for farmers to produce chicken is to fit as many chickens as they can in an environment they can control - such as an enclosed shed - and encourage them to grow as quickly as possible.
Chickens are cheap and quick protein-processing units, many living for as little as 35 days before going to slaughter. They have been bred to grow as quickly as possible with lots of breast meat to satisfy consumer demand. However this can cause lameness, heart failure and many other welfare issues for the chickens.
File Sharing
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EveryonesaWinner.pdf
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