Through intensive breeding, the growth rate has quadrupled in the last 65 years: In the 1950s, broiler chickens weighed around 1.5 kilograms after around 120 days. Today they reach this weight in less than 30 days. Productivity has also increased in other areas. In the past, one in five chickens fell ill and died during fattening. This proportion has now fallen to a few percent. Today, animal health plays a greater role.
The animals’ feed utilization is also record-breaking: a chicken needs 1.5 kilograms of feed to produce 1 kilogram of meat. For comparison: a pig needs around 3 kilograms, a cow 8 kilograms. During fattening, the animals eat a lot, move little, and hardly fly or flap. This is also because at the end of the mast they hardly have any space to move around undisturbed. While the husbandry is sometimes assessed critically from an animal welfare point of view, the lack of exercise suits the fatteners: less exercise equals less energy consumption and therefore higher weight gain. The aim is to have the largest possible breast fillet that consumers are happy to buy.
The proportion of organic chicken meat is – similar to beef or pork – negligible. In 2022, organic poultry accounted for just 1.5 percent of total production at around 27,800 tons. Almost all broiler chickens live in closed barns; Daylight, yes, but there are hardly any places where you can go outside.
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