Lighting Poultry Houses with Incandescent Bulbs

Though fluorescent lights are much more energy efficient and last longer than incandescent lights, they have one major weakness: they tend to be difficult as well as expensive to dim to the levels most producers desire. To gain maximum control over light intensity throughout the life of a flock, many producers who were using compact fluorescent lights in the past are finding themselves switching to incandescent light bulbs. With incandescent bulbs, a producer can start a flock with a high lighti...ng level (1 to 2 ft-candles) to help get the chicks off to a good start and then later in the growout the bulbs can be easily dimmed to a much lower level (0.2 to 0.05 ft-candles) through the use of an electronic dimmer to help reduce bird activity and thereby improve feed conversions.