10 Jun 2022

Birds density and its influence on effective temperature

Although most poultry farmers understand that humidity and air speed can affect bird thermal comfort, bird density is an underestimated factor. Although most poultry farmers understand that humidity and...

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Although most poultry farmers understand that humidity and air speed can affect bird thermal comfort, bird density is an underestimated factor.

The typical poultry house controller makes decisions on ventilation/heating equipment operation based almost exclusively on house temperature.

Though for the most part this works fairly well, the fact is, a bird’s thermal comfort (whether a bird feels hot or cold) is determined by much more than just air temperature.

Is a temperature of 24ºC excessive for birds’ flock?

Whether a temperature of 24º-75ºF is excessive for a flock of birds at slaughter depends on air velocity and relative humidity.

A temperature of 24ºC – 75ºF with no air movement and 90% humidity is likely to cause heat stress in birds.
Conversely, 24ºC – 75ºF with an air speed of 700 ft/min and a humidity of 20% could possibly result in birds feeling chilled.

As a result, even though a poultry house environmental controller may be doing a great job at maintaining a programmed target temperature, it may not be doing as good of a job of controlling bird comfort if house relative humidity and air velocity are not taken into account when it is programmed.

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Birds density

Though most producers realize that humidity and air speed can affect a bird’s thermal comfort, one factor that’s impact is often underestimated is bird density.

The fact is that bird density can have more of one effect on bird comfort than either relative humidity or air speed.

Figure 1. Deep body temperatures of low and commercial density birds (Room temperature = 24ºC – 75ºF)

While for the birds being grown at

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