Comparing meat chicken certification standards

Other BCC requirements

The BCC also includes a requirement that cages are not used when raising chickens for meat. We haven’t included it in the above table, as no Australian producers use cages for meat chickens (they are used for layer hens). However, putting a prohibition on cages into welfare standards prevents any possibility of their use in the future.  

Companies that sign up to the BCC must also publicly report on their progress towards or compliance with the welfare standard that they have committed to. For example, a business who has signed the Better Chicken Commitment must make public annual reports on what they have done to progress their supply chain towards meeting the BCC requirements. You can track the progress of global BCC commitments via chickenwatch.org and ChickenTrack. 

Breed - The BCC requires companies to switch to chickens from a list of approved slower growing breeds which have demonstrated higher welfare outcomes than conventional fast-growing breeds. The evidence shows that breed has a significant impact on the welfare of meat chickens, with slower growing birds performing better than fast growing birds on most measures.

Space - The floor space available for chickens is referred to as stocking density, measured as the weight of chickens in kilograms per square metre (kg/m²). This is because younger, smaller chickens take up less space than older birds, so the number of birds per square metre isn’t necessarily a useful measurement. 

Light - The BCC requires chickens to have access to daylight, a minimum period of continuous darkness every day, and light intensity of at least 50 lux. Lux is the measure of how much light reaches a surface. Brighter light, especially natural light, is good for chicken welfare as it stimulates activity and feeding, improves leg health and helps birds rest more easily during the dark period.  

Air quality - Good air quality is crucial to welfare when animals are kept indoors. The BCC uses two measures of air quality – ammonia concentration and carbon dioxide concentration. Chicken droppings produce ammonia gas, especially when allowed to get too warm and wet. Ammonia is a major air quality issue for farmed chickens as at high levels it causes injury to their eyes and airways. Damaged airways are more susceptible to infections. Carbon dioxide levels get too high when there isn’t enough ventilation. Air needs to be able to move through the sheds to and from the outside, so that carbon dioxide can’t build up in the enclosed space. High levels of ammonia or carbon dioxide are often an indicator of other welfare problems.  

Litter - Litter is the material on the ground which chickens walk, sit, and sleep on. Litter quality and cleanliness have a huge influence on chicken health. Friability refers to how dry and crumbly the litter is, and how likely it is to hold moisture. Moisture in litter is bad because it helps bacteria grow and it sticks to the chickens’ feathers and legs. When bacteria are allowed to multiply in chicken manure, this produces ammonia.  

Enrichment - Environmental enrichment means providing chickens with things to do that exercise their bodies and their brains. The BCC requires all chickens to have enrichment in the form of perches and pecking substrates (such as straw bales) that birds can manipulate and interact with. Perches and straw bales encourage activity, provide opportunities for different types of movement, and can improve leg health. Chickens are highly motivated to perch, particularly at night, so enough perching space is needed for all birds to be able to perch. 

Thinning - Also referred to as partial depopulation, thinning is the practice of catching and removing some of the chickens from a shed. There are a few reasons why this happens. Producers often start out with an excess of chickens in a shed, who will eventually grow to a size that would exceed maximum legal stocking densities. Before they reach this stage, they will thin the flock and take a proportion of birds to slaughter early. Sometimes they will have specific contracts for purchasers who want smaller birds. Thinning allows for maximum production from the available chicken shed space. However, thinning has serious welfare and health consequences. Sending teams of unfamiliar people into the shed to pick up birds can cause significant stress and injury. There is also a higher risk of illnesses (like coccidia and campylobacter) affecting the remaining birds, caused by interruptions to biosecurity protocols.  

Slaughter methods - Two main methods of slaughter are used in Australia for chickens raised for meat. The first  involves grabbing chickens by the legs and hanging them upside down on shackles on an automatic conveyor belt (this is called live inversion). The conveyor belt then dips their heads into an electrified water bath to stun them (make them unconscious) before they move past an automatic blade which cuts their throats. Live inversion is a stressful and often painful process. The chickens often move around trying to escape, which can cause injuries. As they move, some chickens will miss the electrified water bath so are killed while they are fully conscious and aware. The second method is controlled atmosphere stunning, where gas is used to send the birds unconscious. They are then either killed by the gas or hung up while unconscious for slaughter.  Controlled atmosphere systems provide more reliable and effective stunning and reduce handling and avoid the need to shackle conscious birds. Effective stunning means that every chicken is made unconscious before and during death, so they don’t suffer from the fear and pain of slaughter.  

Auditing and compliance - Auditing and compliance refer to the processes for checking or assessing that certification standards are being met. Auditing involves examining records and inspecting facilities against an agreed standard, either through scheduled audits, or random inspections, or a combination of both. Third-party auditors are best as they’re completely independent from the chicken producer and the certification body.