Animal CareIt's the Perdue Way
It's not the easy way. It's the Perdue Way. We're opening the doors (and windows) to our chicken houses. Take a look inside.
Continued Commitmentto Animal Care
We started raising poultry in 1920, and we've been dedicated to animal welfare ever since.
See the Extra StepsWe're Taking
Going Beyond Our Chicken Needs and Wants
We know that chickens need more than food and water. Little extras add up to make a big difference in their lives. We're raising them to higher standards by giving them what they want and need, with programs designed to improve early chick care and litter programs, as well as vegetation preference in the pastures.
We believe in five freedoms for animals and are charting our progress using them.
Connecting with Family Farmers
We're committed to listening and communicating with the farmers who take care of our animals, and building stronger relationships with them. We're improving things by holding meetings with our new Young Farmer Development Group. We are exploring their priorities for mentoring, including with experienced poultry farmers, information and engagement and are developing a program to support their development and long-term success.
Meet a few of our family farmers to learn more.
Being Open, Transparent and Trustworthy
We're open to constructive criticism from everyone, and we're committed to answer to it. We're responding to questions, sharing important information about our animal welfare initiatives, including results from third-party audits, with our stakeholders.
Our Poultry Care programs are audited by independent third parties like USDA, Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and Process Verified Program (PVP), and for some animals raised by Perdue, by the Global Animal Partnership.
Believing in Continual Improvement
We've had an active Animal Care Council for more than 15 years, but we're still learning new things every day. While some animal care initiatives are short-term activities, others will continue as part of our enhanced culture of animal care. Ongoing programs for which we report our goals and performance include improving paw health, animal handling video monitoring, recognizing positive and negative behaviors, adding windows, increasing bird activity and space, improving farmer relationships, increasing public engagement and reporting audit results.
We Believe in5 Freedoms for Animals
1. Freedom from hunger and thirst.
We offer continuous access to nutritionally complete 100% veggie diets free from animal by-products. We also offer herbal products and probiotics to promote healthy chickens. And we've found that adding fiber to our chickens’ diet has positive benefits on overall health. We continue to work on chick feed nutrition that supports a stronger, healthier start to their development.
2. Freedom from discomfort.
We’re continuing to study the feasibility and potential benefits of an on-farm hatching program to improve early chicken care, and how we can make chickens and other breeds feel more comfortable within their housing environment.
3. Freedom from pain, injury or disease.
We’re determined to improve animal welfare. Litter condition can impact the overall health and welfare of broiler chickens. That’s why we developed a litter condition scoring method to implement across all broiler growing program to include all farms and flocks. Going forward, we’ll study how this scoring method correlates to improved animal welfare.
4. Freedom to express normal behavior.
Simply put, we believe when raising poultry, chickens should be able to act like chickens. We feel that active chickens — those that can express normal behaviors such as perching and play — are healthier chickens. That's why we developed an educational module around normal chicken behavior to help train flock advisors. Our belief is that if you want to encourage normal chicken behavior, you need to understand what normal behavior is.
5. Freedom from fear and distress.
We have zero tolerance policies for instances of animal abuse. We remain committed to moving all of our chicken harvest operations away from using electrical shocks to “stun” birds before to using a Controlled Atmosphere Stunning (CAS) system to induce insensibility with minimal trauma.
Back to Perdue Way
Our company was built on integrity, and we carry that spirit in everything that we do.
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