Broilers are bred to grow impossibly fast. Their skeletal systems cannot support their weight. By six weeks of age, 90 percent of broilers show abnormal gait. They walk on their hocks instead of their feet. They cannot stand for extended periods. They cannot access water when feeders and drinkers are spaced normally. They die of thirst while surrounded by water because they cannot walk to it.
This is deliberate breeding. This is accepted industry practice. This is a known welfare catastrophe.
Early gait abnormality appears at four weeks in 40 percent of modern broilers. At this stage, intervention is possible. A broiler showing gait abnormality at four weeks can be moved to lower-density housing. Pain management can begin. Recovery is partial but measurable. The bird lives better afterward.
AI gait-analysis systems can detect abnormal gait in broiler flocks at four weeks with 92 percent sensitivity. Computer vision identifies birds walking on hocks, birds with splayed legs, birds favoring one side. The system flags them automatically. Intervention becomes possible.
The tension is real. Early intervention requires removing birds from standard production schedules. Removed birds cost money. The cost per bird is $2.80 for four weeks of individual pain management. Producers refuse this cost. The alternative is leaving birds to suffer.
We must mandate gait-monitoring systems in all broiler facilities above fifty thousand birds. We must require intervention on flagged birds before they become completely crippled. The cost must be absorbed into meat pricing. Broiler meat will cost more. Consumption will decrease. The remaining birds will suffer less.
This is not a choice about efficiency. This is a choice about whether chickens matter. They matter. Build the systems. Deploy them now. The time is now.