Effects of Lighting and Dietary Energy Source on Male Market Turkeys. 1. Growth Performance Data

Abstract Two experiments were conducted with 528 and 500 Large White male turkeys to determine the effects of feeding either wheat or corn as the energy source and the effects of four different lighting treatments on growth, feed consumption, and feed conversion in a factorial arrangement. Wheat and corn diets were freely provided during the experiments and the lighting treatments began at 8 wk of age. The lighting treatments included: continuous light [C, 24 h light (L):0 h dark (D)], light decreasing 1 h/day per week until it reached 16L:8D (D1), light decreasing 2 h/day per week until it reached 16L:8D (D2), and intermittent light (I, 4L:2D). All birds were processed when the C birds were estimated to weigh 11.36 kg. No differences in body weight, feed consumption, or feed efficiency were found from 0 to 8 wk of age between turkeys fed diets with either wheat or corn as the energy source. For the period of 8 to 18 wk in Experiment 1 and 8 to 16 wk in Experiment 2, turkeys fed wheat diets were, respectively, .75 and 4.09% (P