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- Title
Right light for poultry - optimizing lighting for poultry houses.
- Authors
Redantz, A.; Reimers, L.; Andersson, R.
- Abstract
There are legal requirements for poultry husbandry, which are often based on an analogy between humans and birds. Unsuitable lighting conditions can lead to behavioural deviations such as feather pecking. Animal-friendly husbandry requires knowledge of the bird's eyesight and the technical requirements derived from this. The retina contains 2 types of photoreceptors (rods, cones), of which the cones are involved in colour vision. Humans have 3 types of cones that react most sensitively to the 3 primary colours red, green and blue. Thus, through additive colour mixing, "white" light is perceived when the 3 cones are stimulated simultaneously. Birds have at least one additional type of cone that enables the perception of ultraviolet (UV-A) light. Consequently, it can be assumed that birds only perceive "white" light when the incoming light contains a UV-A component. If a colour is missing from the light spectrum, so-called "false colour vision" can occur, as illustrated in figure 1. Reflection and absorption of light can cause objects to appear in other colours: for example, a red button appears red under "white" light, but black under monochromatic "green" light. In contrast to sunlight, artificial light sources usually do not contain any UV-A component, so that poultry lack at least one colour to complement their visual spectrum. As a result, "false colour vision" can occur when poultry is moving between outside (free range) and inside (house) areas or when moving pullets from the rearing to the laying house when using different types of lamps e.g., fluorescent lamps and LEDs. Thus, changing light conditions can induce "stress" and result in behavioural deviations. Due to the higher avian spectral sensitivity (approx. 320 - 780 nm) compared to human spectral sensitivity (approx. 400 - 750 nm), poultry perceives the housing environment brighter than humans, so that the light intensity cannot be evaluated with the unit lux. The merging of individual light stimuli into a continuous stream of light is referred to as the flicker fusion frequency. Depending on the brightness, this can reach around 119 Hz in birds. When the emitted frequency of lamps is below the flicker fusion frequency of poultry, the lighting is perceived as flickering. Therefore, lamps for barn lighting are recommended that emit at least a frequency of 160 Hz and are therefore considered flicker-free for poultry. Due to the superior avian eyesight, measurement parameters and devices that are adjusted to human vision cannot be used to assess lighting conditions for poultry. The basis of an animal-friendly housing environment is, among other things, the use of species-specific units.
- Subjects
HOUSE lighting; MONOCHROMATIC light; COLOR vision; POULTRY housing; SPECTRAL sensitivity; LIGHT sources; RED
- Publication
European Poultry Science / Archiv für Geflügelkunde, 2023, p13
- ISSN
0003-9098
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1399/eps.2023.378