Vitality and productivity of laying hens under different light flickering frequency of led lamps

Abstract

The vast majority of modern LED lighting systems for poultry use pulse-width modulation to control illumination in the poultry house. This work studied the vitality and productivity of laying hens under different frequencies of light flickering of LED lamps. The 113-day-old hens of the SP-789 cross were used to form 4 groups of 144 heads each. All groups of chickens were kept in the cage batteries up to 320 days of age, 8 hens per a cage. The light mode was 1L:4D:4L:2D:3L:10D (L-light, D-darkness), the luminance was 10 lx. The lamps in the control group No.1 had no light flickering, while in the experimental groups Nos. 2, 3, and 4 the lamps had light flickering frequencies of 120, 488, and 977 Hz, respectively. The study results showed that in groups Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, the livestock livability was 97.2%, 91.7%, 95.8%, and 95.8%; the egg production per the initial hen was 151.7, 144.4, 151.1, and 150.6 pcs., the average egg weight was 59.3, 59.5, 59.0, and 58.8 g; the yield of egg weight per the initial hen was 9.013, 8.635, 8.940, and 8.895 kg; the feed consumption was 1.43, 1.46, 1.39, and 1.40 kg for 10 eggs and 2.40, 2.43, 2.35, and 2.37 kg for 1 kg of egg weight. It was concluded that it is advisable to use LED lamps with light flickering frequency not less than 488 Hz for laying hens.