US chicken companies pioneered restricting sleep to keep birds eating around the clock.
A new study (Li et al., 2026) recommends giving chickens just 2 hours of darkness nightly to maximize the time they spend eating. The study and photo are Chinese.
We know chickens have far better hapiness with 7–8 hours of darkness to sleep.
But they eat more when they are sleep restricted.
FYI caged hens are no longer common in large parts of the western world and even in the worst countries, like the US, the percentage of caged hens have dropped under 50%. For meat chickens it’s even better with practically zero in cages.
Talking about lightning the EU mandates 6 hours of darkness. Don’t know the US rules. I’m assuming it’s much worse there as it usually is.
Laws vary by state but iirc, California banned caging entirely, including imports. That said, cage free doesn’t mean quality of life.
I notice a huge difference with the more expensive eggs cause real free roaming hens eat lots of bugs and produce better eggs with deep orange yolks. Though, naturally scammers ruin that cause some orange hued eggs are dyed so buyer beware.
They’re not dyed they’re just fed beta carotene supplements. All organs yolks are from beta carotene supplements, deep yellow yolks are the natural color of a nutritionally healthy chicken
Please don’t fall into the ‘cage free is fine’ delusion, because putting so many chickens in a square meter that none of them have personal space is probably about as miserable for them as being in a cage. If anything it can be worse, since chickens can and will attack and eat injured chickens.
That doesn’t mean they get sunshine, fresh air, green grass.
This guy gives you a good glimpse into the realities of farming.
https://m.youtube.com/@blackbirdcoop
Including calling out the subset of bullshit “free range” farms.
Even for meat chickens not in cages, they’re bred to be so big and grow so fast they can hardly walk and many just die of heart attacks as they get too big.