W e have been familiar with the influence that lightening has to the general health conditions and welfare of our chickens, however the latest researches showed it is much more important than we could even imagined. It is a key factor for the number of laid eggs, their weight and size but even more.
Did you know that by manipulating with color of the light, light intensity and length or photoperiod we can influence to the adrenal function and immunosuppression in poultry?
Peter Lewis from University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and Trevor Morris president of the World Poultry Science Association together have examined these trends and in their book ‘Poultry Lighting – The Theory and Practice’gave some of the explanations for this phenomena.
Although the response of the poultry of the light stimulatory varies within different species and breed of a flock, the light that has been given to the flock in one day or 24 hours will most probably reflect to sexual maturity. That is why it is important to know the right amount of lightning your chickens need to receive during the rearing period of pullets.
The illuminance is the second light characteristic that influences the speed of development to sexual maturity and beside the lightening intensity they singles out the color of the light as poultry response already to the radiation below 400nm. It means they actually have four cone in the retina of the eye which able them to see in in ultraviolet light which differs them from humans that have just three.
As we can see long photo-periods that mean continues illuminance, are as important as a proper nutrition and watering of your chicken’s flock. With modernization and new energy light resources we are able to control day lengths and with it whole development of our chickens. However we need to know different light sources as well as different light characteristics provoke different response in every breed and spice. So be careful and try to stay updated before try any experiment with it.
