Nearly 1 billion animals a year in Spain. Thousands of factory farms. Systematic suffering.
A macro-chicken is not the chicken we used to know. It is an animal genetically redesigned to grow four times faster than 70 years ago, to the point where its own body cannot sustain itself. In just 38 to 42 days —before completing its development— it is already heavy enough to go to the slaughterhouse. Its bones break. Its heart fails. Its legs cannot bear its own weight.
This campaign was born from an undercover investigation into farms in Spain and the European Union. What our cameras recorded is not the exception: it is the system. Every year, more than 810 million of these birds are raised and slaughtered in Spain under conditions that science defines as systematic suffering. The future of chicken welfare depends on legislative changes and public pressure.
Undercover investigation
Every year, more than 810 million of these birds are raised and slaughtered in Spain under conditions that science defines as systematic suffering. AnimaNaturalis, together with the Observatorio de Bienestar Animal and Eurogroup for Animals, investigated. This is what we found.
For weeks, our investigators gained access to fattening farms across different parts of Catalonia and Castilla-La Mancha. No scripts. No staging. What they filmed is what happens every day, in legal facilities, within current regulations. These are broiler chickens.
Undercover investigation on chicken farms. Spain, 2026.
On industrial farms, animals are treated as machines used to achieve extremely high production rates, always at the expense of their welfare.
In Spain, this intensive production system keeps growing. In 2021, meat production in Spain surpassed the 2020 record, exceeding 8 million tonnes.
During gestation and farrowing, 2.5 million sows are confined in individual crates so small they cannot even turn around. Breeding sows spend nearly half their lives in these crates, forced into relentless cycles of reproduction. In Sweden, all sow crates have been banned since 1994, and in the United Kingdom since 1999.
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), around 40% of the antibiotics produced worldwide are used as additives in animal feed.
Excessive antibiotic consumption through meat and dairy leads to the emergence of bacteria that are increasingly resistant to known treatments.
Cows and bulls are highly social animals. However, calves are separated from their mothers just hours after birth and isolated in pens where they cannot develop their normal herd behavior or have contact with other calves or their own mothers.
In general, all animals deprived of the opportunity to express their natural behaviors show a high incidence of stereotypies, considered an indicator of poor welfare.
We propose the end of factory farms. We can do without animal exploitation and we work to discover the cruel reality that the meat, egg and milk industry hides from us.
That the regulations be modified so that the installations of the farms allow the animals to develop their natural behavior without restrictions.
Cage ban on all farms, regardless of species or production cycle.
Prohibition of tail and beak mutilations, removal of tusks and castrations without anesthesia.
Immediate ban on the live chick crushing system as a system for discarding males on farms.
Require a European label that informs about the production system to which animals for meat, dairy products and derivatives are subjected, thus avoiding consumer fraud.
Require own animal welfare legislation for species that do not have it, such as rabbits, turkeys and calves.
Veterinary care focused on the welfare of each animal as an individual and not only on ensuring the survival and productivity of the group on the farm.
The feeding of animals on farms should not only take into account fattening or survival, but the correct nutrition of the animals. It is impossible to talk about well-being if they are not offered balanced and adequate food for their organisms, not just a hypercaloric feed.
