3 Steps To Ensuring Healthy & Productive Poultry Through Ventilation

It will come as no surprise that ventilation plays an important role in ensuring healthy poultry. Ventilation can help improve both animal welfare and flock productivity. John Lack, Sales Director at EG Agri, discusses 3 important steps to ensuring health and productivity.

1. Undertake a ventilation audit

   For a ventilation system to be effective, it must be maintained correctly. It’s usually a good idea to undertake a thorough review of all air movement systems periodically. Things to look out for are that all motors, fan blades and belts, and louvres are all working and moving correctly. Then a thorough audit of the temperature, CO2, humidity sensors and vents within a shed should take place.

2. Tackle heat stress in summer

   With record temperatures already been hit in the UK this Summer, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the ongoing battle against heat stress. Ventilation systems should be continuously monitored, optimised, and upgraded where needed to keep birds in ideal conditions.

   The answer lies in making sure sheds can draw through as much air as possible. If you can see that a hot day is approaching, it could be worth over-ventilating the night before to drop the temperature by 2-3°C to help maintain optimum temperatures for birds, from 21 days into the cycle and throughout the hottest parts of the day.

   You could even consider a summer ventilation mode where the shed has summer inlets at the front and additional fans at the rear. With the side vents closed and the roof fans shut down, a tunnel ventilation effect is created for increased air speed and thermal comfort.

3. Avoid wet bedding in Autumn and Winter

   The seasons come and go quickly, and we are now approaching Autumn already. Rapidly falling cold air can cause wet/sticky bedding during colder months, which can lead to red marks or hock burns on the feet and legs of chickens. To avoid cold air reaching the ground, you should make sure side inlets are closing correctly and increase the air pressure intake to direct cold air to the roof of a shed. This can be done by calibrating the air vents to provide narrower openings.