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.



fuck this a thousand times. hens deserve better.
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I’ve been a vegetarian for 27 years and you make me want to eat a hamburger. There’s some great advice in this thread about how to begin transitioning to veganism.
And then there’s you.
Some vegan asshole who wouldn’t let me go on my way (I had to wave at a police officer) told me being vegan is easy, you just have to eat carbs. I’m vegetarian, I live in an area where most people are obsessed with eating meat, but he insisted on having a go at me.
I just have my own hens bro, they’re happy, they live good lives.
Do you eat vegan meat replacement products? Did you know the world’s largest meat supplier (JBS) owns many of the companies that make them? So do Danone (dairy company), Müller (dairy company) and Nestlé (just vile in general).
This is true, the choices aren’t great. But even that being the case, you are still sending a signal to those companies which kinds of products you’d prefer to buy.
A lot of grocery stores have data-driven inventory systems now. Buying more plant-based options does ultimately help more of them become available.
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This is a stupid fucking take and an overgeneralization. I for example buy certified humane pasture raised eggs from my local co-op that are supplied from farms literally within an hour’s drive away.
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I’m not vegan and I don’t support this.
People support this with their wallets. It’s simple supply and demand.
I do not :)
Then you would either be vegan or a hunter.
Neither, I just don’t purchase from these companies. I couldn’t even if I wanted to, the described practice is illegal where I live.
If I want an “ethical” chicken, I can buy one. A five pound bird cost $40. Are you rich? lol Or you have your own farm.
I’m far from rich. I just live in a country where all chicken purchased from a store get enough sleep by law. And chicken from friends and family run around the yard and sleep/wake with the sun.
If you purchase meat from these companies - you very much do.
If you don’t want to - there’s an extremely obvious solution available.
Ultimately all manner of meat consumption in industrial societies amounts to genocide and torture. All we’re doing is slightly negotiating the degree of suffering inflicted.
Veganism means we don’t give a space to farm animals anymore. We (humans) have modified them in such way they can’t survive in nature ; especially in the few nature we would let them. How can it have an other result than the genocide of all that species?
Industrial exploitation of animals count as torture and should be stoped for that, yes. But it is not a genocide: it makes sure the species remain alife. The genocide is vegan.
Welfarism seems to me the research of the best compromise: keep that species alife and in better conditions.
You would wind down reproduction over time like anything else. Chickens, ehem, non meat chickens, roost in trees. Im near certain chickens,would have predators yes, but theyd be alright.
to be vegan is to genocide the farm breeds is a wild take
I am sorry, I think I did not understand your argument nor on what it was based. Could you please reformulate it?
I do not purchase meat from those companies
Not necessarily, you don’t have to be a vegan to not eat chicken or eggs. What about people who only eat seafood, although that is getting increasingly unsustainable with the amount people eat.
What about just eat the invasive things? Honestly would be tempted to if I could legally do it without a shitload of paperwork and licensing to worry about. Though you don’t need a license to catch fish in the sea here the only invasives I am aware of are freshwater or land animals which all require permission.
An all or nothing stance is part of the problem though. If doing good is defined in a way that is difficult for people to achieve, they will feel like they can’t do good and give up before they started.
Anything we do to improve the lives of animals or remove some suffering does exactly that.
Going vegan is not difficult.
Going vegan is wrong. Going vegetalian may be right, but comes with extra needs.
Going vegan is wrong because it leeds you to choose clothes made out of petrol rather than wool, while wool would last longer and need less ressources on the long run. It leeds you to choose your food from fields using petrol engines to be farmed and reject those using animal traction.
Yes, there are not much field cultivated with animal traction. And this has caused a near extinction of the animals used for traction. Those saved are risen by humans, so non-vegan friendly. Going vegan is willing the extinction of all animals risen by human unless they can still handle themselves in nature.
Vegetalians may agree at measure to let animals survive thanks to human interactions, and could accept some domestication of animals. They may use wool, they may accept vegetables arrived to the market carried by a donkey (and prefer them for that reason to the ones bringed by a truck).
Yet, to be vegetalian, you need a good access to medicine, in order to check you remain healthy, and to correct the mistakes you may make. This access isn’t easy everywhere in the world.
So how much is the animal ag industry paying you?
Are all those who disagree with you paid by someone to be part of a great conspiracy?
Nope, only those who have a suspicious preoccupation with arguing against vegans specifically, especially when their arguments are cartoonishly dumb and aimed directly at demonizing the very people who are just trying to make the world less cruel.
Apparently this isn’t a diet where you only eat Italian food. I’m disappointed.
Weird mind gymnastics you’re doing here.
Cotton, manual labor and electric engines.
Then we should help animals thrive in the wild. Stop hunting, stop killing forests, stop taking their land, and all that stuff. You mentioned none of those.
The current living cows, pigs and chickens are bred to extreme artificial amounts for your pleasure. This is not natural. If we stop breeding more animals and kill off the remaining alive ones, eventually it will balance itself out again. We are not helping them by breeding them and killing them. That’s a selfish fallace so you can sleep at night.
You do not. I personally do a blood check every year just in case. Funnily enough I only had a tiny vitamin D deficiency because I worked inside a lot. Besides that I just eat what I want, vegan of course. I merely added legumes and beans to my diet, and changed some meat things in my dishes for more veggies. It’s really that easy. Super easy and you’ll actually be even more healthy because meat is not healthy.
Your fallace comes from claiming there are only two ways, the hard industrial process or the vegan way (which requires hard industry too).
There are other ways, efficient enough, if we step out of consumerism and capitalism. Yet, if we don’t step out of that, your plan to let natural places to wild animals is an unrealistic dream, so I guess we agree to step out of that (tell me if I am wrong).
Accepting manual labor question me a lot, since one of the base argument of veganism is that human is an ordinary animal and so have no right over other animals. But so, I don’t get how you finally accept productions of humans but not those of other animals. Even when the human workers have no choice but are exploited by a system torturing them.
In my view, it is not a question of right humans would have over other animals. We inherit of a situation. Our ancestors have forced many animals into an unfair contract where we protect them of other predators and take care of their needs, in exchange of their production and meat. It was unfair from start. We have built our civilizations thanks to that unfair contract. Now that we reached a technological level which allow us to do without them, we would just fire them and let them try to survive on their own in the lands we accept to let them?
Wouldn’t it be more moral to have more consideration for those we have forced to be our allies? The contract was already not fair, cancelling it just because it is not at our benefice enough anymore is not something I see as a superior morality.
I don’t understand your point. It makes no sense. What do you want exactly? You want to keep them in farms but not eat them? Or keep them in farms and still eat them? Your argument is incomprehensible. There is no such thing as overnight veganism. And as we move towards a vegan society, animal numbers will normalize and become natural again. That’s just a fact.
I have no problem with eating animals. Some do, and I do not claim they are wrong.
Yet veganism isn’t about eating. The eating part is a vegetalian diet. Veganism add to refuse animal’s prduction such as wool, and all kind of human control over animals. And this is the part I can’t see morality in.
Your simple “number will normalize” claim is so scary when given without any thing to back it. Is it to mean you do not care? You want your hands clean and do not care about consequences?
I don’t ask you to eat them. I just ask you to allow them to survive, even when it needs our help. Because that is something we owe them.
That I want, is to step out of capitalism and consumerism in favor of a society that would be organized to support an healthy and happy life to all humans (even those who live far away). For this, I think we (westerners, but not only) need to learn to live with nature instead of against it. Yet since human made self a master of nature, it is their duty to preserve it.
It is difficult to get adequate nutrition on a vegan diet.
It requires being able to read about nutrition and putting that knowledge into practice - which involves making meal plans that take into account the various mineral and vitamin requirements that we have in order to be healthy.
There are significant accessibility barriers when it comes to eating a healthy, vegan diet.
It is not an easy feat for the abled, and in addition there are factors such as socio-economic status and associated challenges that can make it less accessible for people.
I made a vegan meal the other weekend for an estimated $5. Enough to feed 8 or 9 servings.
Lentils, onion, carrot, flour, spices, oil. Vegan food is poverty food, and it can be very tasty. Socio-economic status associate challenges is … not an acceptable answer though.
I generally find it exasperating to discuss matters within this topic with Americans, as there is a lack of acknowledgement regarding class issues. I’m sorry for the generalization, but I just don’t have the energy.
Socio-economic and class issues are more than the price of ingredients. But you are right that buying ingredients to cook a plant-based meal can be low cost.
issuea related to a lack of time are generally skill issues
It is not. Eat your legumes, beans and some nuts and look for B12 fortified foods. That’s it. Keep in mind that most people are unhealthy on non vegan diets, and that meat is fortified with B12 too because the animals don’t get it in nature. So it’s but a small change for an equal nutritious diet.
Again, not really. Same counter argument as before.
This is true. Fast food becomes hard to find, so you’ll have to actually start cooking now and then, which is something a lot of unhealthy non-vegans are scared of. Besides that everything is already available in every first world country supermarket.
It is an easy feat. But you are correct about your “status” in society. You’ll often get people trying to argument against being vegan. And those are all the same arguments you’ve heard thousands of times, all of which have long been disproven. They’ll tell you you are unhealthy and that it’s hard, but it’s easy and you’re more healthy than them. You get people coming up with arguments not because they believe them, but because they want to believe them, so it justifies their own non-animal-friendly diet. It can be hard, but only because other people make it hard like you do.
I don’t make it hard. I would love it, if it were easier, but unfortunately it isn’t.
It is difficult to get the adequate nutrients on a vegan diet. Research the required nutritional values for your age, gender and body type. Type the values into a nutritional application and track your food intake throughout a certain period, the longer the better. With no diet planning on a vegan diet, it is unlikely that you will get adequate nutrition.
It’s true that people who do not adhere to a vegan diet can be unhealthy. The difference is that their diet does not set them up to be unhealthy if they eat healthy ingredients and do not plan their food intake. If you are vegan, don’t plan your meals on the basis of nutritional knowledge, and only eat otherwise healthy ingredients, you are still at risk of becoming unhealthy because of malnutrition.
You come off as someone who is generally privileged and has no respect for the different barriers that people face.
You are wrong.
Great argument. Again, I would love it if the reality of the matter were as you say it is. Unfortunately that is not the case, and anyone wanting to adhere to a vegan diet would be wise to do some research and plan accordingly.
Also, the more someone chooses to support animal welfare /chooses not to support the industrialized torture and exploitation of animals, the better. Everything counts.
Instead of downvoting, I would love to hear your counter argument.
I didn’t downvote your reply. I suggest using some client or service that shows who downvoted you before making assumptions, like you do about being vegan.
I didn’t address you specifically, rather the people who downvoted.
My comment is based on science-based nutritional facts, not assumptions.
I am not coming for you. I am simply trying to have a discussion based on facts.
You did:
This sentence does not imply multiple people.
How fast do you shovel down your food? You should enjoy it some more … oh, right, I’d probably also would want it to be over quickly if I had to eat vegan.
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Hey, I don’t discriminate. I eat all the kingdoms of life!
any archea in that diet?
Probably, I have some in my mouth right now!
That is nonsense and just plain dumb. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Modern day agriculture is reliant on livestock to keep our current levels of farming efficiency. Farming aimals is a requirement for modern agriculture.
We just eat to much meat, eating no meat at all will cause so much more problems than veganism would solve.