Poultry Studies

The Effect of Applying Different Coloured Lighting to Partridge (Alectoris Chukar) Eggs in Incubators on Hatching Results and Responses of Open Field Test

Samet Can DONMEZ 1 ,Ahmet CEYHAN 1 ,Nilgun YAPICI 1 ,Dogan NARINC 1

1 Akdeniz University, Agriculture Faculty, Department of Animal Science, Antalya, Turkey DOI : 10.34233/jpr.1595820 - The aim of this study is to ascertain the impact of dark and two distinct monochromatic lighting applications during incubation on the hatching characteristics of Chukar partridge (Alectoris chukar) eggs, as well as certain open field test characteristics following hatching. A total of 300 hatching eggs collected three consecutive days from partridges that mated by chance and were not subjected to selection were used in the study. All eggs were placed equally in same incubators and applied dark, blue, and green illumination. The highest hatchability of fertile eggs and hatchability of total eggs were found to be 89.7% and 87.9% in the blue group (P<0.05). It was determined that the reason for this situation was that embryonic deaths in the late period were higher in the group without illumination and in the groups with green monochromatic illumination. In addition, the effects of the lighting applications on the open field test performed after hatching on the characteristics such as movement, jumping and calling were found to be insignificant. As a result, it was determined that the incubation results obtained from the incubator illuminated with blue colour had a better effect than the other groups. Keywords : Monochromatic light Photoperiod İncubation Poultry Behaviours