Lighting for Broilers

ONCE® broiler-specific lighting systems are designed to improve productivity and enhance animal welfare by providing a light spectrum the animal responds to best, during all stages of development. With AgriShift® technology and a production dimmer program, light intensity, photoperiod and color spectrum can be can all be manipulated for better performance.


Productivity Enhancement

Under Junglite GreenTM and Dim-to-Blue® technology, birds are calmer, less prone to run, not as jumpy and consequently put more feed energy into just growing. This has additional positive effects on both ADG and uniformity. By having the red spectrum during brooding ONCE® lights promote early growth. Then during the grow-out as the ONCE® LED lights dim they shift color to a blue light spectrum. Research tests and on-farm testing have both shown immediate changes in bird behavior and improved feed conversion ratios when Agrishift® lamps are dimmed to the lower levels of blue enhanced spectrum. The link is due to the monochromatic LED source lighting (blue in this case) increasing growth through a couple of factors. Broilers reared under green monochromatic light develop faster during their early stages due to proliferation of skeletal muscle satellite cells. In the growth stage, combined green and blue light promotes myofiber growth (muscular development) due to more effective stimulation of testosterone secretion.

Poultry integrators have standard requirements for the amount of light or foot candles needed for brooding. The light meters they use to measure foot candles only measure the light spectrum that people visualize. This is basically the green and yellow light spectrum. Poultry are much more sensitive to the red and blue light spectrum. Poultry see light in 4 light spectrum while people only see in 3 lights spectrum. ONCE® Agrishift® LED's produce red and blue light spectrum that a common light meter will not measure. The red and blue light spectrum have show to improve bird performance. Poultry actually perceive the light from our AgriShift® LED's as being 25% brighter than other lights. This is why foot candle measurements with a common light meter are not perceiving the red and blue light spectrum. They just measure what you and I see not what the poultry see. Seeing is believing, look at how poultry visualize the butterfly compared to how we see the butterfly. Color matters.

You can read more about this under The Science of Poultry Lighting.


Built For Your Barn®

ONCE® Agrishift® LED lamps have a robust design that is made specifically for harsh Agricultural environments. The JJ-Jelly Jar, JB-Junction Box, and HW-Hard Wire versions are suitable for use in wet locations and are IP-66 rated. This means they can withstand a high-pressure wash down of 100L/minute for at least 3-minutes. Article 547 of the National Electric Code requires LED luminaries in agricultural building be suitable for wet locations. This is to prevent electrical shock hazard, reduce the risk of fire, and prolong the life of the equipment. When making your purchasing decision be wary of other LED lamps that are merely suitable for damp locations or are built for residential housing and have warranties that void if operated in violation of the National Electric Code. In addition to being wet-rated, Agrishift® LED lamps are built to withstand the corrosive vapors from animal excrement and excessive dust accumulation. This prolongs the life and eliminates maintenance visits. Heat causes light failure and early light or lumin depreciation. Our AgriShift® lights have a very large heat sink designed to dissipate heat which helps prevent light failure and light depreciation. LED's that resemble a light bulb do not have this.


Energy Savings

Unbelievable as it sounds, switching from incandescent lighting to LED lighting with dimming can save from 85 to 95% of your lighting electricity costs. Switching from compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) to ONCE® LED lighting products saves from 60 to 70%. Recently a formal study was conducted in production barns using ONCE® Agrishift® LED lamps (and a production dimmer) compared to other barns using traditional incandescent and HPS lighting products with other conditions held constant. The energy efficiency gains speak for themselves with 3837 kWh consumed for the incandescent and HPS barns to a mere 99 kWh consumed for the ONCE® Agrishift® barn. The ONCE® Agrishift® lamps literally used less than 3% of the energy from the standard incandescent and HPS lighting. This electricity savings is approximately $335 per barn per flock or $7,401 per year for a typical farm with 4 barns.


Animal Welfare

Reducing animal stress improves animal livability and performance. ONCE® Agrishift® LED lamps, lighting programs and regimes are directed toward minimizing extreme change in lighting that is shown to increase cortisol levels and inhibit melatonin secretion resulting in lack of sleep and well-being. By offering LED lamps that present uniform coverage and a consistent light, including the ability to provide a smooth sunset and sunrise functionality, minimizes corticosterone levels and thus reduces stress markers.

In addition, red spectrum lighting has been shown to increase locomotion and aggressive behavior in chickens while blue spectrum naturally works to calm chickens. Therefore, by providing lamps that minimize red content and also provide blue content, even in the presence of red light, aggressive behaviors are minimized and the general welfare of the birds is improved.