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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Amarachi Ogbonna, Dr Monnye Mabelebele, Professor Lucy Asher, Dr Abdul ChaudhryORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2024 the author(s). Investigations were carried out to determine whether sex could influence the impacts of dietary vitamin D3 in IU/kg at either 4,000 alone (HD) or at 1,000 combined with ultraviolet B (UVB) light (LDU) and UVB light only on broiler performance and welfare. Three-hundred 1-day (d)old Ross 308 broiler chicks were wing-tagged and allocated to 6 treatment groups, each with 5 replicated pens containing 10 broilers per pen in a 3 (HD, LDU, UVB) × 2 (males and females) factorial design. Output lamps (24 W 12% UVB D3, 55 cm) were installed in the centre of the pen 50 cm above the centre of the pen to provide UVB light (intensity: 28.12 µW/cm2; wavelength: 280–315 nm) for the broilers in all the treatment groups but the lamps were filtered in the HD and LDU groups. The birds were monitored for growth performance and welfare, as indicated by their feather and gait scores. At 42 days of age, selected birds were individually weighed and dissected for determining meat yield, GIT and bone morphometrics and vitamin D status. The dietary vitD3 and sex interacted (P < 0.05) for carcass yield, whereas sex influenced all the parameters measured. The UVB and female birds had lower BW (P < 0.05), lighter meat yields (P < 0.05), better feathering and walking ability (P < 0.05) and inferior bone traits (P < 0.05) compared to their counterparts. Although none of the treatments improved growth alongside welfare indicators of broilers, the results suggest some beneficial effects of UVB light on welfare and the potential to support early life feeding and grow-out periods of commercial broilers when housed indoors.
Author(s): Ogbonna AC, Mabelebele M, Asher L, Chaudhry A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Open Agriculture
Year: 2024
Volume: 9
Issue: 1
Online publication date: 23/12/2024
Acceptance date: 05/09/2024
Date deposited: 06/01/2025
ISSN (electronic): 2391-9531
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH
URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/opag-2022-0363
DOI: 10.1515/opag-2022-0363
Data Access Statement: The data generated or analysed and original contributions presented in this study are included in the article; further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
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