810 million chickens a year in Spain. 42 days of life. Systematic suffering.
A broiler chicken is not the chicken we used to know. It's an animal genetically redesigned to grow four times faster than it did 70 years ago, to the point where its own body can no longer support itself. In just 38 to 42 days — before it has even finished developing — it already weighs enough to be sent to slaughter. Its bones break. Its heart fails. Its legs can't bear its own weight.
This campaign was born from an undercover investigation on farms across Spain and the European Union. What our cameras recorded is not the exception: it's the system. Every year, more than 810 million of these birds are raised and slaughtered in Spain under conditions that science defines as systematic suffering. The future of chicken welfare depends on legislative change and public pressure.
Undercover investigation
Every year, more than 810 million of these birds are raised and slaughtered in Spain under conditions that science defines as systematic suffering. AnimaNaturalis, together with the Observatorio de Bienestar Animal and Eurogroup for Animals, investigated. This is what we found.
For weeks, our investigators gained access to fattening farms across different parts of Catalonia and Castilla-La Mancha. No scripts. No staging. What they filmed is what happens every day, in legal facilities, within current regulations. These are broiler chickens.
Undercover investigation on chicken farms. Spain, 2026.
Artificial genetic selection has turned the chicken into a meat-producing machine. In just a few decades, its growth rate has quadrupled. The result is an animal whose cardiovascular and skeletal systems are unable to support its own muscle mass. Ascites — heart failure caused by pulmonary hypertension — causes up to 12.4% mortality on farms. The suffering is not an accident: it's built into the animal's own biology.
Between 5.5% and 48.8% of commercial chickens suffer from gait abnormalities. They spend between 76% and 86% of their lives lying down, not out of instinct, but due to physical disability and chronic pain. When given painkillers, their activity increases significantly — direct evidence that they live with constant pain. Their legs and respiratory system cannot bear their own weight.
European regulations allow stocking densities of up to 42 kg/m². EFSA itself warns that any density above 11 kg/m² prevents basic behaviors such as wing-flapping, exploring, and preening. Royal Decree 692/2010 allows between 20 and 22 adult chickens in the space of a single parking spot. The gap between what science considers acceptable and what the law permits is not a mistake: it's a decision.
Spending almost all their time lying on accumulated droppings, chickens develop burns on their feet and chests. In some systems, moderate to severe lesions affect 71.5% of the birds. Ammonia in the sheds — at concentrations above 15 ppm — irritates mucous membranes, damages the eyes, and contributes to severe respiratory diseases.
In industrial sheds, the light cycle is set by a timer programmed to maximize feed intake: between 18 and 23 hours of artificial light a day. The logic is simple: an awake chicken eats, and a chicken that eats grows. Regulations require a minimum of 6 hours of darkness, but enforcement is practically nonexistent. The science is clear: balanced light cycles reduce locomotor injuries and cardiovascular mortality.
Chicks are hatched in massive industrial incubators and moved along conveyor belts from the very first second of life, with no mother or natural warmth. Mortality in this first phase is high: dehydration, infections, and failures in thermal regulation. Drinkers are set at the height of the bird's outstretched neck, not to make drinking easier, but to keep water from wetting the litter and breeding bacteria. The weakest simply don't make it.
Between days 15 and 28, mortality drops below 0.5%. This is the phase the industry calls "feed efficiency": the animals eat nonstop under lighting schedules of up to 20 hours of artificial light. But the damage begins quietly here. If ventilation isn't perfect — and at this density it rarely is — ammonia from the droppings is already starting to burn their feet: the footpad dermatitis that turns into severe lesions in later stages.
In the final stretch, mortality spikes again: between 1.5% and 2% of the birds die because their own bodies give out. Their hearts and lungs haven't grown at the same pace as their muscle mass. Density reaches 42 kg/m². When slaughter time comes, workers grab the chickens by the legs at high speed, causing fractures. A percentage arrive dead at the slaughterhouse — what the industry calls DOA, Dead on Arrival — without it ever appearing on any label.
The use of antibiotics to speed up growth has been banned in the EU since 2006. However, in 2024 Spain used 29.5 tonnes of antimicrobials in chickens — more than double the European average adjusted for biomass (93.1 mg/kg in Spain versus 46.1 mg/kg in the EU). Antibiotics no longer fatten the birds, but they're still needed to keep alive animals raised in unsustainable conditions.
In Spain, 5.6% of chickens raised — around 41 million animals a year — die on the farm before they can be slaughtered, due to pathologies stemming from their own genetic design. That's more than 112,000 deaths every day caused by induced biological fragility. This figure appears on no product label. Every signature tells the industry and lawmakers that this is no longer a secret.
We call for an end to industrial farming. With particular urgency, we demand:
Only you can help end industrial farming and put a stop to the suffering of millions of animals.
