Lighting conditions in poultry houses profoundly affect bird welfare, behavior, and health. Evidence-based lighting standards represent an achievable welfare improvement for billions of birds.
Lighting welfare in poultry production is both underappreciated and highly actionable. Dim, continuous lighting in conventional broiler houses is specifically designed to suppress activity and maximize feed conversion by reducing energy expenditure in movement — a practice that directly reduces behavioral welfare. Birds in dim lighting spend more time inactive, have less opportunity to express foraging and social behaviors, and show poorer leg health. Providing adequate light intensity and natural light cycles (including dark periods) improves activity, behavior, and physical health simultaneously. This is an intervention that requires only a change in lighting management rather than capital investment in new infrastructure.