Poultry are among the most intensively farmed animals on the planet, with billions of chickens, ducks, turkeys, and geese raised and slaughtered every year. In factory farms, chickens bred for meat (broilers) are genetically manipulated to grow unnaturally fast, leading to painful deformities, organ failure, and inability to walk properly. Egg-laying hens endure a different kind of torment, confined to battery cages or overcrowded barns where they cannot spread their wings, engage in natural behaviors, or escape the stress of relentless egg production.
Turkeys and ducks face similar cruelty, raised in cramped sheds with little to no access to the outdoors. Selective breeding for rapid growth results in skeletal problems, lameness, and respiratory distress. Geese, in particular, are exploited for practices such as foie gras production, where force-feeding causes extreme suffering and long-term health issues. Across all poultry farming systems, the lack of environmental enrichment and natural living conditions reduces their lives to cycles of confinement, stress, and premature death.
The methods of slaughter compound this suffering. Birds are typically shackled upside down, stunned—often ineffectively—and then slaughtered on fast-moving production lines where many remain conscious during the process. These systemic abuses highlight the hidden cost of poultry products, both in terms of animal welfare and the broader environmental toll of industrial farming.
By examining the plight of poultry, this category underscores the urgent need to rethink our relationship with these animals. It calls attention to their sentience, their social and emotional lives, and the ethical responsibility to end the widespread normalization of their exploitation.
Chickens who survive the horrific conditions of broiler sheds or battery cages are often subjected to even more cruelty as they are transported to the slaughterhouse. These chickens, bred to grow quickly for meat production, endure lives of extreme confinement and physical suffering. After enduring crowded, filthy conditions in the sheds, their journey to the slaughterhouse is nothing short of a nightmare. Every year, tens of millions of chickens suffer broken wings and legs from the rough handling they endure during transportation. These fragile birds are often thrown around and mishandled, causing injury and distress. In many cases, they hemorrhage to death, unable to survive the trauma of being crammed into overcrowded crates. The journey to the slaughterhouse, which can stretch for hundreds of miles, adds to the misery. The chickens are packed tightly into cages with no room to move, and they are given no food or water during …