Animal-welfare advocates have long cast meat companies as the overseers of a cruel system in which chickens are bred to grow so heavy so quickly that their legs can’t support their weight. They’ve argued the industry should opt for more humane production practices. But little is known about how production costs would be impacted if the industry pivoted away from the ultra-heavy birds.[...]
The target weight for many broiler chickens that wind up in grocery stores is about 6 pounds. The slower-growing breeds take between 54 and 59 days to reach that weight. The faster-growing breeds hit that target in about 41 days.[...]
That 14% doesn’t directly cross over into retail, Lusk explains. After considering the costs of processing, packaging, shipping, and also consumer willingness to pay a premium for birds marketed as slower-growing, the economists settled on the idea that retail prices would have to increase by just 1.17%. Overall, they said, if the US switched to slower-growing breeds, the meat industry would sell about .91% less chicken than it does currently in a given year, amounting to about $3.5 billion in lost profits.
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