Effects of light intensity on growth, anti-stress ability and immune function in yellow feathered broilers

Guo, Y. LMa, S. MDu, J. JChen, J. L

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of light intensity on growth, anti-stress ability, and immune function of yellow feathered broilers. A total of 480 one-day-old male Lingnan yellow feathered broilers were randomly allocated to 4 treatments based on light intensity (1, 5, 20 and 80 lx) with 8 replicates of 15 chicks each. The experiment lasted for 63 days. Compared with those under high light intensity, broilers exposed to low light intensity had higher (p<0.05) total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), a-Naphthylacetate esterase (ANAE+), antibody titer, but lower (p<0.05) malonaldehyde (MDA) levels and heterophil/lymphocyte ratio (H/L). There was a linear effect for T-AOC(p=0.002), GSH-Px(p≤0.047), MDA (p=0.003), H/L(p≤0.014), ANAE+ (p≤0.044), and antibody titer (p≤0.021) with T-AOC, GSH-Px, ANAE+, and antibody titer increased significantly as light intensity decreased, whereas MDA and H/L were decreased with the decrease in light intensity. These results suggested that broilers under low light intensity could have similar performance, better anti-stress ability, stronger immune function, and more efficient in energy usage as compared with those exposed to high light intensity environment.(AU)

1. Immune function
2. Light intensity
3. Growth
4. Yellow feathered broilers
5. Anti-stress ability