The Response of Broilers to Delays Between Hatching and Feeding under Intermittent Lighting Treatments

An experiment was conducted to estimate the effects of time intervals between hatching and the time of placement in the rearing house on mortality, carcass quality, feed conversion and body weights. The time intervals were 0, 7, 24 and 48 hours under two methods of intermittent lighting. When all birds were weighed so that the time spent in the rearing house was constant among all groups there was no significant difference in body weight. Light treatments consisted of continuous light to 7 days of age then continuous cycles of 2 hours of light followed by 4 hours of darkness compared with continuous cycles of 4 hours of light and 2 hours of darkness from 7 to 56 days of age compared with a continuously lighted control group. There was no difference in performance except that the group on cycles of 2 hours of light and 4 hours of darkness exhibited better feed conversion than the other groups.