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[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1719226.].[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1719226.].

Footpad dermatitis and hockburn are serious welfare and economic issues for the production of broiler (meat) chickens. The authors here describe the use of an inexpensive camera system that monitors the movements of broiler flocks throughout their lives and suggest that it is possible to predict, even in young birds, the cross-sectional prevalence at slaughter of footpad dermatitis and hockburn before external signs are visible. The skew and kurtosis calculated from the authors’ camera-based optical flow system had considerably more power to predict these outcomes in the 50 flocks reported here than water consumption, bodyweight or mortality and therefore have the potential to inform improved flock management through giving farmers early warning of welfare issues. Further trials are underway to establish the generality of the results.

Non-commercial chickens may be the third most numerous pets in Western countries. Yet, to date, there is limited research into their welfare or the care-taking practices and attitudes of their guardians. Using a quantitative questionnaire, this study investigated non-commercial chicken owners’ care-taking practices, attitudes, and relationship types with their chickens. Additionally, the study investigated barriers to optimizing non-commercial chicken welfare. Specific questions were asked regarding niche care-taking practices, including the use of Suprelorin® implants. With 2000+ responses, this study found variable care-taking practices, yet largely positive attitudes towards chickens, and a “personal” (though not “close personal”) owner–chicken relationship, as defined by the Owner–Bird Relationship Scale. The Chicken Attitude Scale, Owner–Bird Relationship Scale, and Care Series scores were found to be correlated with each other, with coefficients ranging from 0.176 to 0.543 (p < 0.001). “Preventing commercial chickens from going to slaughter” was a key motive for chicken care by 56.1% of respondents, with 69.6% of respondents stating they cared for ex-commercial chickens. This study found a higher prevalence of reported poor health conditions and number of deaths relative to prior studies, and egg yolk peritonitis emerged as a leading health condition and cause of death. Moreover, 68.0% had not heard of Suprelorin® implants, and only 6.3% used implants. Most (76.4%) chicken carers followed an omnivorous diet that includes chicken meat/eggs. The results reinforced previous findings concerning a need for more avian-specialist, locally available, and affordable veterinary care for chickens. Research into Suprelorin® implants, rooster-specific care, and tailored requirements of caring for ex-commercial chickens is recommended.

Approximately 1.8 billion chicks are hatched worldwide in commercial hatcheries every month. A typical commercial hatchery is a high-speed and stressful environment. Not only is chick welfare impacted while at the hatchery, but also chickens’ early life experiences can have long-lasting impacts on their welfare once they leave the hatcheries. Additionally, chick embryos may have the capacity to experience stress and pain. This study systematically reviewed recent scientific studies exploring the starting point for the capacity to suffer in chicks and chick embryos. It found that the capacity to suffer (i.e., to experience pain, distress, or other prolonged negative welfare states) may commence by embryonic day 18—three days before hatching—and likely earlier. Based on this, serious and widespread welfare problems may exist for the 1.8 billion chicks hatched in hatcheries globally every month.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is widely recognized as a force that will fundamentally transform traditional chicken farming models. It can reduce labor costs while ensuring welfare and at the same time increase output and quality. However, the breadth of AI’s contribution to chicken farming has not been systematically quantified on a large scale; few people know how far current AI has actually progressed or how it will improve chicken farming to enhance the sector’s sustainability. Therefore, taking “AI + sustainable chicken farming” as the theme, this study retrieved 254 research papers for a comprehensive descriptive analysis from the Web of Science (May 2003 to March 2025) and analyzed AI’s contribution to the sustainable in recent years. Results show that: In the welfare dimension, AI primarily targets disease surveillance, behavior monitoring, stress detection, and health scoring, enabling earlier, less-invasive interventions and more stable, longer productive lifespans. In economic dimension, tools such as automated counting, vision-based weighing, and precision feeding improve labor productivity and feed use while enhancing product quality. In the environmental dimension, AI supports odor prediction, ventilation monitoring, and control strategies that lower emissions and energy use, reducing farms’ environmental footprint. However, large-scale adoption remains constrained by the lack of open and interoperable model and data standards, the compute and reliability burden of continuous multi-sensor monitoring, the gap between AI-based detection and fully automated control, and economic hurdles such as high upfront costs, unclear long-term returns, and limited farmer acceptance, particularly in resource-constrained settings. Environmental applications are also underrepresented because research has been overly vision-centric while audio and IoT sensing receive less attention. Looking ahead, AI development should prioritize solutions that are low cost, robust, animal friendly, and transparent in their benefits so that return on investment is visible in practice, supported by open benchmarks and standards, edge-first deployment, and staged cost–benefit pilots. Technically, integrating video, audio, and environmental sensors into a perception–cognition–action loop and updating policies through online learning can enable full-process adaptive management that improves welfare, enhances resource efficiency, reduces emissions, and increases adoption across diverse production contexts.

Poultry welfare has been extensively studied; however, there is a lack of rigorous scientific knowledge relating to the different aspects of welfare factors and how this may contribute to the production quantity and product quality as well as the welfare of chickens. Therefore, we conducted an integrated study to compare welfare factors in chickens by providing free dietary choice under cage rearing, and further comparing cage rearing with free-range rearing. One hundred chickens each were allocated to a cage rearing group with conventional feeding (CC), a cage rearing group with free dietary choice of mealworms (FDM), a cage rearing group with free dietary choice of mealworms and fresh grass (FDMG), and a free-range rearing system group with free dietary choice of mealworms and fresh grass (FRMG). Results showed that under cage rearing, free dietary choice contributed to better meat quality and gait score, higher values of blood platelets, and a richer gut microbial composition, but poorer egg production than CC chickens. As compared to FDMG, FRMG chickens showed better meat quality, gait score, and feather conditions, as well as a richer gut microbial composition; however, they had poorer egg production and a poorer foot pad and foot feather condition. We conclude that free dietary choice and free-range rearing systems improve the product quality, gait score, and microbial richness of chickens.

Increasing concern in the EU over animal welfare and food quality has strengthened policy pressure on broiler welfare standards and consumer demand for less-intensive systems. The European Chicken Commitment (ECC) promotes slow-growing genotypes to improve welfare, sustainability and sound rearing systems. This study compared two ECC-approved genotypes, slow-growing (SG, Kabir; 30–40 g/day) and medium-growing (MG, Ranger Gold; 40–50 g/day) with a conventional fast-growing genotype (FG, Ross 308; >65 g/day). One hundred chickens per genotype were divided into two treatments: control (C, no stimulation) and moderate exercise (EXC, 30 min/day at ∼4 km/h), all fed the same commercial diets. Growth traits of live chickens’ performance were measured, daily feed intake (DFI), daily weight gain (DWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR). Behaviour was monitored via a computerised system (Noldus Technology); feather condition, footpad dermatitis (FPD) and sternal lesions were assessed. FG chickens exhibited the highest productive performance but also showed an increased incidence of FPD, sternal lesions, myopathies and reduced comfort behaviours. Conversely, SG birds expressed the greatest proportion of comfort behaviours, albeit with lower productive performance, whereas MG birds displayed decreased comfort behaviours and intermediate performance levels. Exercise elicited genotype-specific responses: in FG chickens, it reduced DWG and worsened FCR due to increased DFI and eating time, conversely MG and SG birds maintained stable performance. Exercise reduced carcase fat across all genotypes. Although both MG and SG strains are categorised as novel slow-growing ECC-approved genotypes, the observed differences between them highlight the need for genotype-specific management strategies.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the welfare conditions of broiler chickens in the live bird markets (LBMs) in Bangladesh. Materials and Methods: A total of fifty broiler outlets were studied in 10 LBMs of Chattogram, Bangladesh. A total of 10 chickens were observed to check the welfare issues during slaughter from each outlet (N = 500). The data were collected using a structured questionnaire method through interviews of the vendors and observation of the lairage and slaughter practice. Results: The study revealed that the stocking density was significantly higher in cage-type lairage than in floor-type (p < 0.05). The feeding and drinking areas for the chickens were significantly but negatively correlated to the stocking density. The duration between unloading of broiler chickens at LBMs and feeding or drinking could exceed 5 hours in 22% of outlets. The mortality was significantly higher in the bigger outlets than the smaller outlets (p < 0.05). During pre-slaughter han¬dling, the one-wing grasping method was practiced more in the bigger outlets (p < 0.05) whereas the feet grasping method was used more in the smaller outlets (p < 0.05). Moreover, the knives used to slaughter the chickens were not sharpened daily in 76% of outlets. Conclusion: This study indicated that the broiler chickens in the LBMs of Chattogram had to face many stress episodes at different stages at their penultimate moments—from lairage to slaugh¬ter—which led to poor welfare conditions and exacerbated the suffering of chickens.

The aim of this study was to explore lameness and the associations between lameness and health/production measures of animal welfare in commercial broiler production, using the Welfare Quality® protocol for broilers. A total of 50 flocks were included in the sample and farm visits were conducted for lameness scoring at a mean age of 28.9 days. The percentage of animals (n=7500) in the six different gait score (GS) categories were GS0: 2.53%, GS1: 44.19%, GS2: 33.84%, GS3: 16.32%, GS4: 2.36% and GS5: 0.53%. Production and other welfare data were collected for each flock after slaughter. Higher gait scores were associated with increased hock burn score (P<0.02), increased footpad dermatitis score (P<0.01), reduced bird cleanliness score (P<0.01) and peat litter (P<0.01). Although not statistically significant, there was a tendency for increased flock gait score being associated with wet litter (P=0.07). In addition, condemnations at postmortem inspection were associated with increasing gait scores (P<0.05), indicating that at least a portion of the lameness cases display pathological changes on the carcasses. In conclusion, 19%of the birds showed moderate-to-severe lameness, which was associated with several production or health and welfare observations including feather cleanliness and condemnations as unfit for human consumption at slaughter. Although stocking density and growth rate are already known key factors for lameness, associations of lameness with hock burns, footpad dermatitis and cleanliness of the birds suggest that a suboptimal physical environment (e.g. litter- and air quality) may be detrimental to leg health. Further studies are needed to explore these associations in more detail.