Date of Graduation

5-2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Poultry Science (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Poultry Science

Advisor/Mentor

Kidd, Michael T.

Committee Member

Scanes, Colin G.

Second Committee Member

Donoghue, Annie M.

Third Committee Member

Wideman, Robert F. Jr.

Keywords

Broiler; Choice; Lighting

Abstract

The use of artificial light sources has been necessitated by the use of fully enclosed rearing facilities for improved environmental control. Light Emitting Diodes (LED) have been developed as a light source that reduce the utilities required to provide equal light to that of incandescent sources. The following reports were carried out to investigate the effects of two light color temperatures, light intensity and light intensity gradients on broiler chicken production and behavior. The first investigation consisting of two consecutive trials investigated the effect of two light color temperatures (2700 K and 5000 K) in addition to the preference for each. It was found that broilers provided a choice between 2700 K and 5000 K had greater (p0.05) was found between BW or BW CV for each of the treatments. In the final report the use of feed line lighting was compared to conventional overhead lighting. The effect of the gradient (90 lx to 30 lx) resulted in similar production to that of a conventional uniform lighting environment of 20 lx. The use of preference and choice in light environments has been suggested to improve the production and wellbeing of broiler chickens in all three of the reports using light color temperature, light intensity, and light intensity gradients.

Download

Share

COinS