Avian adaptations

Like dogs that hear higher frequencies and elephants that hear lower, birds’ specialized eyes let them see a broader range of colors than humans can imagine. Artists can’t truly show us these colors because they don’t exist for us. When depicting the avian color spectrum on charts, artists often extend the most extreme colors we can see, the colors out on the fringe of our perception, farther out into the unknown range we can’t see. Scientists assign wavelength numbers and names like ultra-violet and infra-red to these extreme frequencies, but we haven’t really experienced what they look like. Birds see them because, instead of a human’s three types of cone cells, they have four. Instead of a human’s three types of light-filtering oil droplets, they have five. Instead of a lens that blocks some of the ultra-violet frequencies, their optically-clear lenses let it in. Finally, although it doesn’t see colors, their completely unique pineal gland senses light as well.

There’s important practical research confirming how important color is to poultry. For example, chickens offered different colored food and water have non-learned preference for black first, then green and last red. It’s not surprising considering how food colorings are created. Black food colors simultaneously transmit many different wavelengths of blue, yellow and red, presenting a broad visible spectrum to the bird. Likewise, the second-most chosen color, green, presents only two spectral frequencies for yellow and blue. Finally red, the least preferred color, presents only a single primary color, stimulating the smallest area of the birds’ visual range.

It’s time to see spray-vaccines in a new light

Clearly, birds rely on visual stimulation. It’s up to us, having brains bigger than our eyes, to manage their visual stimulus to optimize the production environment. Examples abound in the world of lighting manufacturers, who work diligently to ensure their products are tuned to a flock’s visual needs, even when these needs vary with different stages of production. In nature there are examples of a single, specific color triggering a response. Birds learn to select ultra-violet reflecting seeds and insects for their food value. Similarly, they can learn to avoid insects with chemical defenses, many of these transmitting red wavelengths. When a behavior is learned, birds respond well to a narrow wavelength of single color. However, when a new, unfamiliar object or stimulus appears, poultry focus on it and respond best when they can see it more fully. Naturally, this color-stimulated selection is enhanced when birds can see the reflected colors better, meaning they see a broader range of wavelengths, and also see the colors more brightly. As in the example with colored food and water, presenting a new object or substance to the bird with a full spectrum of reflected light attracts the most attention, and failing to present the full spectrum can limit the bird’s perception and response.

Sprayed vaccine drops are frequently clear, reflecting almost no light, or a single primary color with a wavelength that does not encompass the entire visual spectrum. Both situations limit each bird’s, and therefore the entire flock’s, behavioral response to the vaccine drops. Spray-Vac Spectrum transmits color frequencies from across the entire avian visual range, ensuring the sprayed vaccine droplets are visible in all wavelengths of shifting natural or artificial production lighting. What’s more, each droplet’s spectral wavelengths are amplified in the extreme upper and lower frequencies, so the birds see these wavelengths even more brightly. Spectrum’s reflecting droplets trigger a more intense preening response, causing the flock to uptake more vaccine, faster. By adding Spray-Vac Spectrum, your spray stabilizer not only protects, preserves and promotes vaccine activity, it also makes your spray more visible across the whole spectral range in any light, triggering better, more consistent vaccine uptake by the birds and greater security for your flocks.