Lighting management in broiler production profoundly affects chicken welfare through its influence on activity levels, sleep, and development.
Lighting management in broiler production is a welfare lever that has historically been pulled in the wrong direction — toward continuous light that maximizes feed consumption at the cost of sleep and natural behavior cycles. Chickens deprived of adequate darkness show physiological indicators of sleep deprivation comparable to those seen in sleep-deprived mammals. The welfare solution — providing minimum 6-hour dark periods — costs producers very little but meaningfully improves chicken sleep and reduces chronic stress. It represents an easy win that industry has been slow to adopt at scale.