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 and grow faster when they are sleep deprived.



May not be allowed to be manipulated… according to what country? A random Google search can pull from any country’s standards, EU ones are some of the best. With that said, I was not able to find a reliable source for this purported study, either.