Performance and Carcass Characteristics of Broiler Chickens reared Under Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) light vis-a-vis Incandescent light Supplemental Lighting Programme

Light plays an important role in birds’ life hence efforts were made to evaluate the performance of broiler chicken in the open-sided house under light emitting diodes (LEDs) and incandescent bulb lighting programme. For this purpose 240 straight run commercial Vencobb^® broiler chicks were procured and distributed in four different light treatment groups i.e. T_w; white (650nm), T_g; green (565nm) and T_b; blue (430nm) light LED bulbs (3 Watt each) and incandescent light bulbs (60 Watt each) as control (T_c) in 12 pens (4×3 factorial design). At the day time open-sided house were open from 10.00 AM to 4.00 PM and rest of the time sides of house were covered with black coloured tarpaulin sheet. Pens were light proof to avoid light interference during dark hours. The results demonstrated that broilers’ performance viz. average body weight, average weekly body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio (FCR), protein efficiency ratio (PER), and energy efficiency ratio (EER) was numerically higher in LED light treatment groups as compared to incandescent light group. Under different light treatments, no significant (p<0.05) difference was found on carcass yields (different prime cuts) such as dressing percentage, drumstick, breast, and neck but back and wing weight were significantly (p<0.05) different in T_c as compared to T_b and T_w. Carcass quality such as pH, WHC, shear force and instrumental colour were statistically non-significant (p<0.05) among different light treatment groups. Therefore, the LED bulbs evaluated in the study could be a better alternative source of light than incandescent light bulbs without affecting broiler performance and carcass characteristics.