Sustainable poultry practices: integrating green light interventions to control pecking in chicken

The present study aimed to investigate the impact of the light-emitting diode (LED) green light alone or in combination with melatonin on pecking-related hormone regulation during incubation under normal and under hormonal stress conditions in breeder eggs. This study was divided into 2 experiments: In the first experiment effect of LED green light incubation on pecking-related hormones under normal conditions, on Hy-line brown (low pecking phenotype) and Roman pink (high pecking phenotype) eggs were tested. The 296 eggs of each strain were divided into two groups: LED green light incubation and dark incubation (control), each containing four replicates (37 eggs/replicate). The second experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of LED green light incubation alone or in combination with melatonin under hormonal stress conditions on Roman pink eggs. A total of 704 Roman pink eggs were taken and divided into four groups, each consisting of 176 eggs. Each group was further divided into 2 subgroups, LED green light-regulated incubation and dark incubation with 88 eggs per subgroup, having 4 replicates of 22 eggs each. The groups were as follows: corticosterone solution injection (CI), corticosterone + melatonin mixed solution injection (CMI), Phosphate buffer solution injection (PI), and no injection (UI).

Results of the first experiment revealed a higher level of serotonin hormone and lower corticosterone hormone in Hy-Line brown embryos compared to Roman pink embryos during dark incubation. The LED green light incubation significantly (P < 0.05) increased the level of 5-HT while decreasing the CORT level in Roman pink embryos indicating its regulatory effect on pecking-related hormones. Results of the second experiment showed that LED green light incubation significantly (P < 0.05) alleviated the CORT-induced hyperactivity of plasma 5-HT in Roman pink embryos. Furthermore, Melatonin (MLT) injection and LED green light together significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the hormonal stress caused by corticosterone injection in the eggs.

Overall, the LED green light regulatory incubation demonstrated a regulatory effect on hormones that influence pecking habits. Additionally, when coupled with MLT injection, it synergistically mitigated hormonal stress in the embryos. So, LED green light incubation emerged as a novel method to reduce the damaging pecking habits of poultry birds.