The Better Chicken Con: When “Welfare” Means More Dead Birds

In 2019, I briefly worked for The Humane League. Their flagship campaign at the time was the Better Chicken Commitment — a set of welfare pledges that many saw as a step forward. Replace fast-growing chicken breeds with slower-growing ones, they said. Give them more space, more time. Make the system “less cruel.”

I asked a simple question:

Wouldn't slower growth mean chickens live longer, eat more, require more land, and in turn — to meet the same demand — wouldn’t more chickens be bred and killed?

The silence was deafening.

Now, in 2025, the data is in.

A new peer-reviewed study in British Poultry Science lays out the problem in black and white:

Yes, slow-growing chickens suffer less intense pain — fewer broken legs, less heart failure, fewer grotesque deformities. But to keep shelves stocked with the same amount of flesh, producers need to breed and kill far more of them.

How many more?

🔺 48% more chickens farmed

🔺 69% more time spent in captivity

🔺 Higher feed use, more land, more faeces, more emissions

In short: a “welfare” initiative that means more lives taken, more environmental damage, and more chickens confined for longer periods.

That’s what was being championed as progress.

If you've ever donated to The Humane League, Compassion in World Farming, Open Wing Alliance, or any of the other NGOs proudly pushing the Better Chicken Commitment — you may want to ask where your money actually went. Because it wasn’t to spare chickens. It was to help the industry breed and kill more of them.

The Welfare Illusion

I’ve already written about this in depth: the dangerous delusion of animal welfare. How it soothes consumer guilt while propping up the very systems it claims to challenge.

The Better Chicken Commitment is the perfect example of what I called The Golden Cage — a well-lit, air-conditioned prison is still a prison.

Now imagine packing that golden cage with more birds, keeping them longer, feeding them more, and clearing more land to grow the extra feed.

It’s not just tragic. It’s absurd.

A System Built on Supremacism

Welfarism assumes we have the right to breed others into existence, use them, kill them — so long as we make that experience “less bad.” 

The Better Chicken Commitment isn’t better for chickens. It’s better for marketing teams. It gives NGOs a “win.” It gives retailers a feel-good badge. It gives consumers an excuse.

But for the chickens? It means their numbers go up. Their lifespans stretch just long enough to eat more, shit more, cost more — and then die all the same.

And the forest that was bulldozed to grow their feed? The animals shot? The insects, rodents, birds displaced by yet more monoculture crops? The rivers choked with all that bird crap. All victims of “better” welfare.

The Ethical Equation Nobody Wants to Solve

Let’s be honest. The average chicken in a factory farm suffers immensely. So the solution seems obvious: reduce suffering. But if your answer is to increase the number of individuals subjected to exploitation in order to reduce the intensity of their suffering… you’re not solving a problem. You’re just redistributing it. When did “kinder” killing become more important than less killing?

This Is Why We Reject Welfarism

Telling people that “better bred” chickens will save the world is a lie. Because painting mass slaughter as progress is a betrayal — of the animals, the planet, and the people who think they’re doing good.

Because every welfare reform that props up demand only deepens the exploitation.

The Only Ethical Commitment

There’s no “right” way to breed someone into existence only to kill them. There’s no “humane” way to turn a living being into a product.

If you truly care about chickens — or pigs, or cows, or fishes — the answer isn’t slower growth or better bedding.

It’s simple:

Stop breeding them. Stop using them. Stop killing them.

Not a better chicken.

No chicken.

Go vegan.