Chubby chickens
Judging by numbers released from the National Chicken Council, broiler chickens – chickens grown for meat – grow a lot faster than in the past. In 2000, the average bird went to market at 47 days old, weighing 5.03 pounds, and in 2023, the average chicken still goes to market at day 47, but now the chubby chickens weigh in at 6.54 pounds.
Comparing these numbers to almost one century ago, broilers took 112 days to grow to a 2.5-pound market weight in 1925.
These changes reflect the increasing demand for white meat over the past century, motivating the industry’s shift to supply chickens with “proportionally larger breasts.”
Dr. Michael Lilburn, a professor at Ohio State University’s Poultry Research Center, tells the Washington Post: “If people keep eating more and more chicken, chickens will probably have to get even bigger…We’ll have to increase the proportion of breast meat in each bird, too.”
“What people don’t realize is that it’s consumer demand that’s forcing the industry to adjust,” Lilburn said of the population’s penchant for chicken nuggets, wings, sandwiches and other cheap chicken products. “It’s a deceivingly small but vocal minority that are raising a lot of legitimate questions. The bulk of the U.S. population still doesn’t care where their food comes from, as long as its cheap.”
Fast food chains and some grocery stores have, in part, supported the demand for larger breast meat, but The New York Times reports that some companies are demanding meat from slow-growth chickens, “contending that giving birds more time to grow before slaughter will give them a healthier, happier life – and produce better-tasting meat.”
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