Creating a Culture of Animal Care
Our Perdue Commitments to Animal Care, launched in 2016, is a four-part program to accelerate our progress in animal care by giving our chickens what they want, strengthening our relationships with our farmers, building trust with multiple stakeholder groups and creating an animal care culture for continuous improvement.
- Freedom To Express Normal Behavior: Perdue is funding a PhD student at Virginia Tech University in partnership with Dr. Leonie Jacobs, an animal welfare expert, to study and document use of elevated enrichments in commercial poultry houses. The work began in September 2024 and will be completed in August 2027. The objective and hypothesis of this work is to determine the potential benefit of added platform space for bird welfare, productivity, and environmental parameters. As part of our research of enrichments as additional square footage in existing poultry houses, we retrofitted two houses on commercial farms with benches and platforms. One farm grows medium sized broilers that generally harvest at approximately seven pounds. The second farm grows larger sized broilers that generally weigh approximately nine pounds at harvest. The ramps and platforms can be designed to add roughly 10% more “floor” space. If utilized appropriately, this innovation would provide enrichment as well as space. Space without needing to build additional chicken houses would be a great benefit: better welfare without a negative carbon footprint.
- Freedom Form Pain, Injury and Disease: We committed to write and implement a standardized litter scoring method for all poultry growing locations and determine if a study is needed to optimize their use. The assessment is based on 10 observations broken down into two groups of five. The first group of five describes what the litter physically looks like, while the second group of five describes what interventions have been implemented. Each observation is scored one 1 to 10, with a possible score up to 100.While our chick livability is better than the industry average, we have committed to identify the cause of flocks with normal chick starts and determine if process improvement opportunities exist to enhance bird starts.
- Freedom Form Hunger & Thirst and Discomfort: We have expanded our on-farm hatch project to commercial chicken houses to determine the value for all seasons. In 2024, we committed to replace a minimum of one flock of a week each season in different bird size programs and report on the benefits and challenges.
- Freedom From Fear and Distress: In 2024, we committed to identify and document best practices for machine bird catching that allows an auditor to check compliance. We developed two best-practice document is focused on the proper selection of personnel running the auto catching machine head (including a temperament that is calm and caring), general safety, operational machine specifics, daily checks, nine different welfare specific practices, and those things that are done at the end of the shift.
We’re committed to building stronger relationships with the farmers who care for our chickens. We’re listening to our broiler farmers, who spend the most time with our birds, to understand their biggest challenges in caring for chickens. Through our farmer council meetings, farmers identified the following three key areas of concern: chick quality and handling, live haul equipment and handling, and outdoor access for the birds. We’re learning from our farmers’ feedback and identifying opportunities for improvement.
We offer products from poultry raised under programs that meet any or all of the four criteria: enrichments, extra space, approved breed, and stunned at harvest using a Controlled Atmosphere Stunning system.
We believe raising animals should be a journey of continuous improvement. We will continue to build an Animal Care Culture within Perdue.
Our Key Steps Forward
As we look back over the 10 years since we announced Perdue Commitments to Animal Care, it has been a journey of listening, learning, and evolving.
The Perdue Commitments to Animal Care are shaped with input from diverse stakeholders – including some of our harshest critics – and we continue to seek their feedback. We learn from a wide range of perspectives, whether they be farmers, our associates, advocates, customers, or consumers, in formal and informal ways.
This has resulted in 116 initiatives designed to address one of the Five Freedoms or one of the other three pillars of our program. And perhaps more importantly, these initiatives have moved from studies or intentions to programs and best practices that are embedded in how we do business every day.
We’re proud of our progress and eager to continue our journey. Highlights of our recent progress include:
- In October 2025, we held our 10th annual Animal Care Summit, bringing together animal care experts and advocates, customers, farmers and Perdue leadership.
- We funded research with a PhD student at Virginia Tech University in partnership with Dr. Leonie Jacobs, an animal welfare expert, to continue exploration of enrichments as additional space in commercial poultry houses
- We developed a four-tier Animal Welfare Certification Program for our poultry care officers, the first step in a commitment to establish educations standards for anyone who encounters our birds, including farmers, flock advisors and plant associates.
- We completed a litter scoring survey process and will analyze results to understand potential correlations to performance and salmonella presence.
- We continue to learn more about how best to hatch chicks in the chicken house instead of a hatchery.
- We developed a trial to identify better welfare issues with an all-male organic program.
2025
2025 Animal Care Summit Highlights
2024
2024 Animal Care Summit Highlights
Farmer Communications
Opening the Farm for Future Farmers
Exploring More Space with Enrichments
Litter Assessment
2023
A Discussion on No Antibiotics Ever
Better Chicken Discussion
Farmer & Rancher Panel: Managing & Enriching Animal Spaces
Animal Care: Our Journey of Continuous Improvement
What Others Say About Our Commitment to Animal Care
Animal Welfare Advocates
"In my experience, Perdue has been first not only test new processes for raising chickens, but also most willing to talk about their results of those tests and show us as buyers what’s worked and what hasn’t worked."
Maisie Ganzler, Chief Strategy and Brand Officer, Bon Appétite Management Company
"Perdue's continuous improvement in animal welfare meets consumers' demands and shows other companies that higher welfare is not only possible, but profitable. By improving the welfare of chickens, Perdue is building a stronger relationship with consumers and farmers. Perdue's commitment to transparency and continuous improvement should be welcome news for any consumer who eats chicken."
Andrew deCoriolis, Executive Director of Special Programs, Farm Forward
Farmers Raising Our Chickens
"The animals are treated with the best care and it's not just a facade. This is really what my farm looks like everyday. It's beautiful, there's windows, they run around, it's not dusty and there's no cages."
Bobbi Jo Webber, Perdue Poultry Farmer
"When we are able to let poultry have access to sunlight, fresh air or an opportunity to be outside when feasible, we show that, though we are growing an animal as a food source, we understand the instincts and needs for such basic pleasures. I am proud to say I work in partnership with a company that values the creatures in our care."
Steven Brake (North Carolina)
"Perdue is leading the industry in putting the chicken first. This care and attention to bird health will in turn increase the stability of future income for each Perdue grower."
Kenneth Young (Georgia)
Company Stewardship Report
Learn about the steps we're taking to reach our goal of becoming the most trusted name in food and agricultural products.