News from THL UK: Judge rules on our historic Frankenchicken case
By Molly Archer-Zeff @ 2024-12-16T11:50 (+57)
Four years of work has led to his moment. When we started this, we knew it would be big. A battle of David versus Goliath as we took the Government to court. But we also knew that it was the right thing to do, to fight for the millions of Frankenchickens that were suffering because of the way that they had been bred. And on Friday 13th December, we got the result we had been nervously waiting for.
Represented by Advocates for Animals, four years ago we started the process to take the Government to court, arguing that fast-growing chicken breeds, known as Frankenchickens, are illegal under current animal welfare laws.
After a loss, and an appeal, in October 2024 we entered the courts once more. And the judgment is now in on one of the most important legal cases for animals in history.
The judges have ruled in favour on our main argument - that the law says that animals should not be kept in the UK if it means they will suffer because of how they have been bred. This is a huge moment for animals in the UK.
A billion Frankenchickens are raised with suffering coded into their DNA each year. They are bred to grow too big, too fast, to make the most profit possible. In light of this ruling, we believe that farmers are breaking the law if they continue to keep these chickens.
However, Defra, the Government department responsible for farming, has been let off the hook on a technicality. Because Defra has been silent on fast-growing breeds of chicken, the judges found they had no concrete policy that they could rule against. This means that our case has been dismissed and the judges have not ordered Defra to act.
It is clear: by not addressing this major animal welfare crisis, Defra has failed billions of animals - and the farming community. This must change.
While this ruling has failed to force the Government to act, it has confirmed our view that farmers are acting criminally by using fast-growing breeds. We will now explore bringing private prosecutions against mega-farms that use Frankenchickens.
The cruel use of Frankenchickens is possibly the biggest animal welfare crisis of our time. With your continued support, we will use this new ruling to do everything we can to bring it to an end.
ClimateDoc @ 2024-12-20T23:15 (+42)
Whilst I salute the effort and progress here, this post does seem rather full of spin, given that from what I can tell the court ruling was against the animal advocates. I'd rather see posts that present the facts more clearly.
Habryka @ 2024-12-21T00:35 (+8)
Wow, yeah, I was quite misled by the lead. Can anyone give a more independent assessment of what this actually means legally?
VettedCauses @ 2024-12-21T02:02 (+33)
The Humane League (THL) filed a lawsuit against the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (the Defra Secretary) alleging that the Defra Secretary’s policy of permitting farmers to farm fast-growing chickens unlawfully violated paragraph 29 of Schedule 1 to the Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2007.
Paragraph 29 of Schedule 1 to the Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2007 states the following:
- “Animals may only be kept for farming purposes if it can reasonably be expected, on the basis of their genotype or phenotype, that they can be kept without any detrimental effect on their health or welfare.” [1]
THL’s case was dismissed.
THL appealed the dismissal, and again THL’s case was dismissed (this most recent dismissal is what THL’s post is about).
In this most recent dismissal, the Court clarified the meaning of Paragraph 29 as follows:
- “Paragraph 29 was not concerned with the environmental conditions in which animals were kept; it was concerned with the characteristics of the breed, and with detriment which could not be mitigated by improving the animal’s environment”
- “Accordingly, paragraph 29 was a prohibition on the keeping of farmed animals whose genotype and phenotype meant that, regardless of the conditions in which they were kept, they could not be kept without detriment to their health or welfare” [2]
Essentially, the Court ruled that Paragraph 29 is only violated if an animal is bred such that it cannot avoid genetically caused health/welfare problems even under perfect environmental conditions (i.e. giving the animal the best possible food/diet, a perfect living environment, and world class medical treatment). This allows farmers to continue to farm animals so long as their genetic issues can theoretically be mitigated by improving conditions, even if those conditions are unlikely to be implemented in practice.
For example, let’s say there is a genetically selected breed of chicken that under normal factory farming conditions grows so fast that their legs snap under their weight by the time they are a month old. Under the Court’s ruling, this would not violate Paragraph 29, so long as this problem (and other genetically caused problems) could theoretically be mitigated with better environmental conditions (i.e. giving the chicken the best possible food/diet, a perfect living environment, and world class medical treatment).
Since the Court offered this interpretation of Paragraph 29, all trial courts in the UK (except for those in Northern Ireland and Scotland) are now required to use this interpretation of Paragraph 29 when making rulings.
From our understanding, this is not a favorable interpretation of Paragraph 29, as it makes it extremely difficult to prove that a violation of Paragraph 29 has occurred. Under this ruling, the only way to prove that a Paragraph 29 violation has occurred is by proving the health/welfare problems encountered by an animal are completely unavoidable, even with absolutely perfect environmental conditions/treatment.
Because of this ruling, anyone who ever tries to claim a Paragraph 29 violation has occurred will have to meet this extremely high standard of evidence that the Court has laid out.
Habryka @ 2024-12-21T19:14 (+6)
Huh, yeah, seems like a loss to me.
Correspondingly, while the OP does not engage in "literally lying" I think sentences like "In light of this ruling, we believe that farmers are breaking the law if they continue to keep these chickens." and "The judges have ruled in favour on our main argument - that the law says that animals should not be kept in the UK if it means they will suffer because of how they have been bred." strike me as highly misleading, or at least willfully ignorant, based on your explanation here.
MHR🔸 @ 2024-12-21T19:38 (+10)
Agreed, this post seems like it goes way against standard forum norms if this is correct
JBentham @ 2024-12-22T10:13 (+3)
I don’t think THL UK’s view of the case is as unreasonable as implied. (See my reply below.) And it’s reasonable for them to provide their view of what it implies for farmers. But the statement about the judges’ ruling does seem somewhat misleading because it suggests that the law is concerned with whether animals will suffer in practice, whereas it seems to be concerned with whether they will suffer in theory. In other words, something like “the law says that animals should not be kept in the UK if it means they will invariably suffer because of how they have been bred” may be more accurate. But again, I don’t think this is as hard to prove as it might seem at first glance. (Again, see my reply below for a fuller analysis.)
VettedCauses @ 2024-12-22T12:06 (+8)
I don’t think THL UK’s view of the case is as unreasonable as implied.
THL claimed "we believe that last week's ruling on Franken chickens marks 'the beginning of the end of this type of this type of outdated farming'"[1] and has a collaborative post on their Instagram page that states that this ruling marked "a significant victory for animal welfare."[2][3]
The Court dismissed THL's case, and provided an unfavorable interpretation of the animal welfare law in question.[4] All trial courts in the UK (except for those in Northern Ireland and Scotland) are now required to use this unfavorable interpretation of the animal welfare law in question.
Is this a significant victory for animal welfare?
- ^
- ^
Note: THL also states in their post "we got the result we had been nervously waiting for" and "This is a huge moment for animals in the UK". Further, on THL's website, they state "The judgment is in on one of the most important legal cases for animals in history."
- ^
- ^
JBentham @ 2024-12-22T15:05 (+16)
Thanks for getting back to me. I think there is a spectrum of interpretations of Paragraph 29, some more favourable and some less favourable to animals.
The least favourable interpretation is that the law does not provide farms with a "conditional permission" - that is, the law does not establish a prohibition on the keeping of farmed animals subject to a "proviso". This was the position taken by a High Court judge in May 2023, and would have ruled out private prosecutions of farms.
The "victory" in the Court of Appeal came in the Court's ruling that:
Paragraph 29 is correctly characterisied as a prohibition which is subject to a proviso. The keeping of animals for farming purposes is prohibited unless it can reasonably be expected, on the basis of their genotype or phenotype, that they can be kept without any detrimental effect on their health and welfare... In this respect, therefore, [the Court does not] agree with the view of the judge, who considered that Paragraph 29 could not be read this way.
As Essex Court Chambers put it:
In disagreement with the judge, the Court held in summary that the relevant paragraphs of the Regulations establish a prohibition on the keeping of farmed animals which have been bred by genetic selection with a view to achieving certain characteristics, unless it can reasonably be expected on the basis of the way that they have been bred that the animals can be kept without any detrimental effect on health and welfare... The Judgment is a significant analysis of the legal obligations that apply to keepers of meat chickens and is likely to have consequences for farmed animals generally. The way forward will be a matter for the Government or the courts in the event of prosecutions.
It is true that the most favourable interpretation for animals - that the law establishes a prohibition on the keeping of farmed animals in the conditions that they are likely to be kept - was not upheld by the Court.
But I maintain that while this means that the bar is high, I don't think it's as high as it seems at first glance. You rightly point out that the Court said that "Paragraph 29 is a prohibition on the keeping of farmed animals whose genotype and phenotype mean that, regardless of the conditions in which they are kept, they cannot be kept without detriment to their health or welfare".
But they go on to say:
However, this needs some further explanation. There is a difference between detrimental characteristics which are inherent in the nature of the breed and which cannot be mitigated by changing the environmental conditions in which the animal is kept, and those which can be so mitigated... the conclusions contained in the RSPCA Report, if valid... appear to illustrate this difference. If it is correct (and I emphasise 'if') that, when compared with slow-growing chickens, a particular breed of fast-growing chickens suffers from increased heart problems with consequential higher mortality, or leg development disorders because the chicken cannot support its own weight, it would seem likely (contrary to the Secretary of State's view, although this is ultimately a matter for scientific evidence) that no improvement in the environmental conditions in which such chickens are kept could mitigate those detrimental effects upon their health or welfare. Those consequences would be inherent in the particular breed of chicken and the keeping of such a breed would be prohibited by Paragraph 29. The same might be true of the problems caused by hock burn and foot burn as a result of prolonged periods of inactivity.
Similarly, Welfare Footprint write: "Although the adoption of better management practices – including lower stocking density, longer resting times and the provision of enrichment – is beneficial and desirable for improving broiler welfare, their impact is limited if the negative welfare effects inherently associated with the genetics for fast growth are not addressed."
One question I do have is why THL UK took DEFRA to Court, instead of bringing a private prosecution of a factory farm. One reason might be that this was an attempt to affect the whole industry, whereas any positive Judgment in the case of a particular farm might still only apply to that farm, even if it establishes a precedent that can be used to bring successful prosecutions against other farms. In other words, taking DEFRA to Court may have been considered a quicker and more efficient route.
This might be of interest to: @Ozzie Gooen @MHR @MichaelStJules @bruce @Rasool.
VettedCauses @ 2024-12-22T18:59 (+12)
Thank you for clarifying this. We agree that our comment above implied a greater degree of unreasonableness on behalf of THL than was warranted.
That being said, we still believe the law is likely in a worse place for animals compared to before the filing of the initial case. The interpretation offered by the Court appears to be quite strict, and we suspect it will be difficult for subsequent litigants to meet the evidentiary standard established by this case. Hopefully we are wrong about this.
We also still believe that THL’s communication surrounding this case was quite poor, and misleading. Notably, THL did not even disclose the name of the court case in this post, or in the post on their website.
JBentham @ 2024-12-22T10:06 (+5)
I disagree that this makes it “extremely” difficult to prove that a violation of Paragraph 29 has occurred. A judge might find it hard to imagine environmental conditions that even in theory could mitigate the suffering caused by their genetics. You could feed them less, but farmers already do this with breeder birds (to prevent them from becoming overweight) and this is itself a welfare concern because it can result in starvation.
As Welfare Footprint puts it: "Although the adoption of better management practices – including lower stocking density, longer resting times and the provision of enrichment – is beneficial and desirable for improving broiler welfare, their impact is limited if the negative welfare effects inherently associated with the genetics for fast growth are not addressed."
It is a higher bar than implied by the post, though. (See my post below for a fuller analysis of the case.)
Habryka @ 2024-12-21T00:34 (+22)
Does someone have a rough fermi on the tradeoffs here? On priors it seems like chickens bred to be bigger would overall cause less suffering because they replace more than one chicken that isn't bread to be as big, but I would expect those chickens to suffer more. I can imagine it going either way, but I guess my prior is that it was broadly good for each individual chicken to weigh more.
I am a bit worried the advocacy here is based more on a purity/environmentalist perspective where genetically modifying animals is bad, but I don't give that perspective much weight. But it could also be great from a more cost-effectiveness/suffering-minimization oriented perspective, and would be curious in people's takes.
(Molly was asked this question in a previous post two months ago, but as far as I can tell responded mostly with orthogonal claims that don't really engage with the core ethical question, so am curious in other people's takes)
MichaelStJules @ 2024-12-21T19:15 (+33)
Welfare Footprint Project has analysis here, which they summarize:
Adoption of the Better Chicken Commitment, with use of a slower-growing breed reaching a slaughter weight of approximately 2.5 Kg at 56 days (ADG=45-46 g/day) is expected to prevent “at least” 33 [13 to 53] hours of Disabling pain, 79 [-99 to 260] hours of Hurtful and 25 [5 to 45] seconds of Excruciating pain for every bird affected by this intervention (only hours awake are considered). These figures correspond to a reduction of approximately 66%, 24% and 78% , respectively, in the time experienced in Disabling, Hurtful and Excruciating pain relative to a conventional scenario due to lameness, cardiopulmonary disorders, behavioral deprivation and thermal stress.
The reduction in suffering per chicken is probably >24% if this analysis is correct, and it accounts for longer lives. My guess is >50%, giving substantial weight to disabling pain relative to milder pain. Accounting for more chickens necessary for the same amount of meat (EDIT: although WFP assumes they grow to the same weight) wouldn't flip things. (And there would be a reduction in demand to partially offset this, due to higher costs per kg of meat.)
Lameness-related pain primarily due to their breed seems to be the largest source of their suffering and responsible for a lot of suffering, so it makes sense to me that slower growing breeds would be better off.
Habryka @ 2024-12-21T20:24 (+6)
Thank you! This is the kind of analysis I was looking for.
MHR🔸 @ 2024-12-21T19:31 (+5)
I think it's worth noting here that (if I'm understanding it right) the alternative breeds recommended by the better chicken commitment are slower-growing but don't have a lower max weight. And the welfare footprint project numbers on pain durations already account for the longer time to reach full weight.
MichaelStJules @ 2024-12-21T19:37 (+5)
I think it's worth noting here that (if I'm understanding it right) the alternative breeds recommended by the better chicken commitment are slower-growing but don't have a lower max weight.
I'm not sure, but the optimal weight at slaughter could be lower, which I think Lusk et al. (blog post) found for the US. Even if they could reach the same maximum weight, it may be more profitable to slaughter them at lower weights.
And the welfare footprint project numbers on pain durations already account for the longer time to reach full weight.
Ya, I intended to imply that, but could have worded things better. I've edited my comment.
MHR🔸 @ 2024-12-21T20:09 (+5)
Gotcha, that makes sense! Even if producers slaughter at a lower weight, I think the number of chicken-days of life per kg of meat shouldn't change much relative to what goes into the WFP analysis. So I don't think that producers slaughtering earlier changes the quantity of time spent suffering very significantly, just whether it's distributed among fewer longer-lived chickens or more shorter-lived chickens.
MichaelStJules @ 2024-12-21T19:41 (+2)
Ah, ya:
For the reformed scenario, represented by the use of a slower-growing strain, we assumed an average ADG of 45-46 g/day, hence that the same slaughter weight would be reached in approximately 56 days.
Ozzie Gooen @ 2024-12-21T02:05 (+6)
(Obvious flag that I know very little about this specific industry)
Agreed that this seems like an important issue. Some quick takes:
Less immediately- obvious pluses/minuses to this sort of campaign:
- Plus #1: I assume that anything the animal industry doesn't like would increase costs for raising chickens. I'd correspondingly assume that we should want costs to be high (though it would be much better if it could be the government getting these funds, rather than just decreases in efficiency).
- Plus #2: It seems possible that companies have been selecting for growth instead of for well-being. Maybe, if they just can't select for growth, then selecting more for not-feeling-pain would be cheaper.
- Minus #1: Focusing on the term "Frankenchicken" could discourage other selective breeding or similar, which could be otherwise useful for very globally beneficial attributes, like pain mitigation.
- Ambiguous #1: This could help stop further development here. I assume that it's possible to later use selective breeding and similar to continue making larger / faster growing chickens.
I think I naively feel like the pluses outweigh the negatives. Maybe I'd give this a 80% chance, without doing much investigation. That said, I'd also imagine there might well be more effective measures with a much clearer trade-off. The question of "is this a net-positive thing" is arguably not nearly as important as "are there fairly-clearly better things to do."
Lastly, for all of that, I do want to just thanks those helping animals like this. It's easy for me to argue things one way or the other, but I generally have serious respect for those working to change things, even if I'm not sure if their methods are optimal. I think it's easy to seem combative on this, but we're all on a similar team here.
In terms of a "rough fermi analysis", as I work in the field, I think the numeric part of this is less important at this stage than just laying out a bunch of the key considerations and statistics. What I first want is a careful list of costs and benefits - that seems mature, fairly creative, and unbiased.
Habryka @ 2024-12-21T19:05 (+2)
- Plus #1: I assume that anything the animal industry doesn't like would increase costs for raising chickens. I'd correspondingly assume that we should want costs to be high (though it would be much better if it could be the government getting these funds, rather than just decreases in efficiency).
I think this feels like a very aggressive zero-sum mindset. I agree that sometimes you want to have an attitude like this, but I at least at the present think that acting with the attitude of "let's just make animal industry as costly as possible" would understandable cause backlash, make it harder to come to agreements, and I think a reasonable justice system would punish people who do such things (even if they think they are morally in the right).
Ozzie Gooen @ 2024-12-21T20:58 (+6)
I feel like that's pretty unfair.
You asked for a "rough fermi estimate of the trade-offs", I gave you a list of potential trade-offs.
If we're willing to make decisions with logic like, "while genetically modifying unnaturally fast-growing chickens in factory farms would increase the pain of each one, perhaps the math works out so that there's less pain overall", I feel like adding considerations like, "this intervention will also make meat more expensive, which will reduce use" is a pretty vanilla consideration.
Habryka @ 2024-12-21T21:38 (+2)
No, those are two totally separate types of considerations? In one you are directly aiming to work against the goals of someone else in a zero-sum fashion, the other one is just a normal prediction about what will actually happen?
You really should have very different norms about how you are dealing with adversarial considerations and how you are dealing with normal causal/environmental considerations. I don't care about calling them "vanilla" or not, I think we should generally have a high prior against arguments of the form "X is bad, Y is hurting X, therefore Y is good".
jcw @ 2024-12-21T20:27 (+5)
The chickens don't end up weighing more at the point that they go to slaughter - the faster growth rate is so that they get to the same slaughter weight in a shorter space of time, which uses less feed. Chickens with faster growth rates therefore aren't replacing more than one slower-growing chicken.
The slower-growing breeds live for longer, which would be bad if it was extending the same pain intensity over a longer period of time, but this seems like it isn't what happens: https://welfarefootprint.org/broilers/
Habryka @ 2024-12-21T21:39 (+4)
Sure, I don't think it makes a difference whether the chicken grows to a bigger size in total, or grows to a bigger size more quickly, both would establish a prior that you need fewer years of chicken-suffering for the same amount of meat, and as such that this would be good (barring other considerations).
MichaelStJules @ 2024-12-22T19:34 (+6)
FWIW, Molly's comment you linked to quoted and cited Welfare Footprint Project and basically addressed something like "grows to a bigger size more quickly":
The Welfare Footprint Project used the Cumulative Pain Framework to investigate how the adoption of the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC) and similar welfare certification programs affect the welfare of broilers. Specifically, they examined concerns that the use of slower-growing breeds may increase suffering by extending the life of chickens for the production of the same amount of meat. From their main findings they stated:
'Our results strongly support the notion that adoption of BCC standards and slower-growing broiler strains have a net positive effect on the welfare of broiler chickens. Because most welfare offenses endured by broilers are strongly associated with fast growth, adoption of slower-growing breeds not only reduces the incidence of these offenses but also delays their onset. As a consequence, slower-growing birds are expected to experience a shorter, not longer, time in pain before being slaughtered.'
Habryka @ 2024-12-23T02:27 (+6)
You are right! I had mostly paid attention to the bullet points, which didn't extract the parts of the linked report that addressed my concerns, but you are right that it totally links to the same report that totally does!
Toby Tremlett🔹 @ 2024-12-18T16:02 (+2)
So pleased to see this! Please update us on the next steps when you know about them. (Though I understand that sometimes it is better not to share details about legal cases).
Specifically, I'm wondering: does the judge agreeing with the key argument open up other potential legal cases, for example? If DEFRA's labelling scheme became a reality, would that mean they'd have to make statements about the wellbeing of Frankenchickens?
Toby Tremlett🔹 @ 2025-01-02T13:11 (+4)
From the rest of the comments, it looks as if I misunderstood this line: "The judges have ruled in favour on our main argument - that the law says that animals should not be kept in the UK if it means they will suffer because of how they have been bred. This is a huge moment for animals in the UK." I.e., it looks as if it should be rephrased to "solely because of how they have been bred", still a good thing, but not the home run I was hoping for.
I really appreciated clarification from @JBentham (this is particularly helpful), and the pushback on the content of the post from @Habryka, @VettedCauses and others!