Meat broilers have been artificially selected for an extremely high feeding motivation, but are not usually feed-restricted, as this would delay the time taken for them to reach slaughter-weight. Broiler-breeders have the same highly increased feeding motivation, but must be feed-restricted to prevent them becoming overweight with all its concomitant life-threatening problems. An experiment on broilers’ food intake found that 20% of birds allowed to eat as much as they wanted either died or had to be killed because of severe illness between 11 and 20 weeks of age – either they became so lame they could not stand, or they developed cardiovascular problems.