Mercy For Animals — Broiler Welfare Campaigns

[Broiler Chicken Welfare] Grant investigator: Lewis Bollard This page was reviewed but not written by the grant investigator. The Mercy for Animals staff also reviewed this page prior to publication. The Open Philanthropy Project recommended a grant of $261,000 to Mercy For Animals to support corporate campaigns to improve the welfare of broiler chickens. Broiler chickens are the most numerous land farm animals, with more than a billion alive at any time and approximately 9 billion slaughtered annually in the U.S. alone.According to this U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report, 9,050,716,000 chickens were slaughtered in 2017. Their welfare is impacted by genetics, overcrowding, inhumane slaughter, and environmental factors like chronic sleep deprivation due to lighting schedules optimized for growth. Broiler welfare campaigns seek to address these causes of suffering. This follows our May 2018 support and falls within our focus area of farm animal welfare. Sources Department of Agriculture 2018 Source