12 Facts You Need To Know About Broiler Chickens

Hey chicken lovers! All these years eating your favourite chicken dishes might not have given you the urge to know few interesting things about your chickens, but I guess your love for chicken should be that intense to make you aware of few facts about broiler chickens.

Well, no need to worry guys because I’m totally not here to make you breakup with your love chicken, I mean to make you vegans but to share some interesting and engaging facts about chickens that might surprise you and make you think few things before you enjoy them on your plates.

Let’s get started.

#1. A chicken’s normal lifespan is 10-15 years, however, every year about 51.6 billion chickens who are mere 42 days old are hatched, cultured, fattened up and slaughtered artificially and globally.

#2. Chickens are one of the most genetically manipulated animals, bred for meat, the chickens are genetically forced to grow 65 times faster than their bodies usually would.

#3. Chickens suffer heart failure at a rate of 4.7% due to genetic manipulation within 42 days of life. The rate gradually increases with the increase of the lifespan of the chickens that’s because their baby hearts find it hard to keep up with the adult size bodies.

#4. Another heart breaking fact about the broiler chickens is they are bred in giant houses overcrowded sheds where the chickens are packed in thousands of number forced to stand and sit on their own faeces laden floor due to which the chickens get exposed to high concentrations of ammonia emanating from the huge accumulations of manure making them suffer from “ammonia burn”, respiratory diseases and fatalities.

#5. According to the estimations, every year all around the globe 12.5 billion chickens suffer painful leg problems including lameness due to their genetically breading for rapid growth.

#6. Chickens that are diagnosed to be too sick or injured to be passed by the quality checker for food supply are dumped alive into large mass grave pit to be left without food and oxygen to decompose.

#7. Chickens have similar vision power as humans. Chickens have full colour vision like we humans which is a surprising fact about broiler chicken that we love to eat.

#8. Chickens do have pain reception like humans which means they can feel the pain and sufferings too that they experience during the entire poultry process.

#9. Can you imagine chickens can communicate too that even with more than 24 different vocalisations with different meaning in chicken coop. They use to warn their friends and family from the predators, communicate with their chicks.

#10. Chickens are also able to dream like humans, they experience REM (rapid eye movement) during their sleeping period.

#11. Roosters (the male chickens) try to attract hens (the female ones) performing a special dance called ‘tidbitting’ which involves moving their head up and down making a call. The female chickens attract towards the roosters who have a large wattle.

#12. Chicken love dust baths but in the farms and factories they are not able to get the dust baths which makes them extremely frustrated. This specific bath helps them to get rid of parasites and to maintain feather insulation.

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