A lighting system that mimics natural daylight has improved feed conversion by 2% in four broiler houses on a Shropshire farm, saving an average of £3,580 a crop, Farmers Weekly reports. IEC Poultry, near Market Drayton, grows 380,000 Ross 308 broilers in eight houses under contract for 2Agriculture. It retrofitted dynamic daylight simulation lighting in its older houses in 2025 and built it into four new ones.
The system lets the farm change both the colour spectrum and the intensity of light through the bird's typical 37-day growing cycle. It includes cool white, warm white and UVA, a wavelength poultry can see. Each 24.4-metre-wide house has four rows of 48 lights, 192 in all, placed to a site-specific design.
Technical specialist Chris Wright uses cooler white early in the crop to get birds active, eating and drinking quickly and into a routine, warmer white during vaccination and rapid growth to keep them calm, and adjusts at the end according to behaviour and the parent flock. "Lighting for me has always been about how we can bring the outside in," he said.
Across the four older houses, about 190,000 birds, feed conversion improved from 1.5 to 1.47. Wright said that means roughly 8-12 tonnes less feed per crop, worth about £2,864-£4,296 at £358 a tonne. Using less feed for the same weight can also keep litter drier, which together with good ventilation and stockmanship helps reduce footpad and hock burn. The system cost marginally more than other lighting.
The installation was designed by J F McKenna with light supplier Hato and Fancom. Brian Moxon, J F McKenna's commercial sales director, said 80% of the company's new builds and retrofits in the past 12 months, 60 houses, have used dynamic daylight lighting, and that an upgrade can pay back in savings equal to less than a month's feed. Each design depends on shed height, equipment and even the colour of the lining, and the lighting hours required by Red Tractor are built into the plan.
Photo: USDA / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Source: Farmers Weekly
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