The shift to measurable, outcome-based metrics is reshaping broiler welfare on U.S. farms, Karen Christensen, senior director for Animal Welfare at Tyson Foods, told attendees at the 2026 Georgia Precision Poultry Farming Conference. Producers, integrators and retailers are moving toward standardized welfare measures developed for the sector, and Christensen urged wider adoption industrywide. KWIs standardized metrics now exist for broilers, layers and turkeys through the International Poultry Welfare Alliance, she said, and they provide a common language for reporting welfare outcomes.
Footpad scoring is the most established of those key welfare indicators and is already used widely as a performance metric at processing. The condition of a bird’s feet at slaughter reflects litter management, ventilation and drinker systems across the flock’s life, Christensen said, and she framed an ambitious target: "The goal should be 100% good paws." Paw lesions point to management shortfalls that need correction in the house before the next flock.
Because footpad scores are a lagging indicator, the industry is pushing for predictive monitoring that can flag risks early enough to intervene. Two technologies highlighted at the conference emerged from the SMART Broiler project, funded in part by the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research, and both aim to identify problems well before processing. First-week predictions are already possible with these tools, Christensen said, allowing producers to respond within the current flock cycle rather than after the fact.
Optiflock, developed with animal behaviorist Dr. Marian Dawkins, uses cameras and movement analysis to predict a range of welfare and production outcomes. The system links flock movement patterns to risks for footpad dermatitis, expected feed-conversion results, lameness prevalence and even the probability of Campylobacter detection at the plant, sometimes as early as the first week of life. That early signal window gives managers time to adjust litter, ventilation or feeder strategies before problems become entrenched.
A complementary approach from AudioT analyzes flock vocalizations to detect stress signals, feed outages, temperature discomfort and early respiratory issues. Both systems feed their outputs into simple dashboards that use red-yellow-green alerts to flag houses needing attention. Christensen also urged better use of the environmental data broiler houses already collect — temperature, humidity, airspeed, ammonia and CO2 — to build farm-specific performance models that connect house conditions to welfare and production results. No litter sensor remains a notable gap: she flagged the lack of a reliable, commercially viable continuous litter moisture monitor as a major blind spot for footpad prevention.
Beyond immediate flock health, adoption of key welfare indicators gives U.S. producers documented evidence they can share with integrators, retail and foodservice partners, and consumers asking how birds were raised. Christensen argued the tools will continue to improve, but the essential step is consistent measurement and reporting of agreed metrics so farms and supply chains can act on them. "We have to monitor what we're going to manage," she said, urging industry commitment to measure, report and respond on KWIs across the production cycle.
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