Temperature is crucial
The process of poultry breeding is a sophisticated issue that can be affected by many different factors. Its final result may be seriously threatened by the conditions maintained in livestock buildings including internal temperature, humidity and air quality.
In poultry breeding the issue of maintenance of the proper temperature is of key importance to preserve proper conditions of bred broilers. Otherwise the birds are affected with thermal stress that results in lower weight gains, worse health condition and higher death rate.
The level of indoor temperature in broilers’ farms should be changed adequately to the breeding stage of birds. At the beginning it should be kept on the level of 31˚C as the birds are not able to regulate their heat balance. Starting from 6th week of life the indoor temperature must not exceed 21˚C to ensure proper thermal conditions. Broilers are very receptive to overheating effect in the 2nd stage of rearing and should be kept between 13°C and 21°C to guarantee a proper appetite and fast body mass gain. Birds need to stay in optimal thermal conditions for minimum 8 hours per day.
THERMAL STRESS IN BROILERS BREEDING
There are many severe consequences of exceeding the proper temperature level in broilers breeding. They typically come from the inappropriate diet that is caused by increased water consumption due to higher temperature level. At the level of ambient temperatures above 18˚C, the water consumption by older broilers is increased by 7% per each 1˚C. In the same time each 1˚C above 25˚C reduces the feed intake by 1.5 %.
Reduction of feed intake in the first place causes the lower mass gains. It also very often results in higher demands for vitamins as typically they are supplied with feed of which intake is decreased.
Additionally the worse diet quality results in bigger amount of health incidents (overheating causes immunosuppression that reduces immunity) what leads to increased death rate in each breeding cycle.
From the other hand, the overheating and increased water consumption make the birds suffered from diarrhea what results in worse quality of birds’ droppings – as these are more liquid than regular ones they cannot be used for sale.
THE TECHNICAL ASPECT OF OVERHEATING
The increase of indoor temperature is related to amount of heat coming inside through external partitions of the building. The partition that is the one most exposed to the heating processes is a roof. It is strongly affected by the highest and the longest contact with direct thermal radiation of the sun. Thus the heat coming from the sun radiation is transmitted to interior parts of the buildings.
The material that creates the roof coating can have a significant impact on the amount of heat coming inside the building. The amount of transferred heat depends on two factors: ability to reflect the sun radiation (reflectance) and ability of emitting the heat back to the atmosphere (emissivity). The higher they are, the cooler roof we have.
Typically the livestock building are covered with metal sheet roofs. Metal roofs can reflect about 50% of the coming sun radiation but they are almost unable to give back the accumulated heat what means that they are very vulnerable to transfer the heat inside the buildings. Metal roofs can be heated up even up to 80˚C and that makes them the biggest heat emitters among different types of roof surfaces.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Nowadays the breeders are able to access many solutions created to solve the problem of birds’ overheating. The typical option is a roof thermal insulation that, initially created to prevent the heat from escape during wintertime, is able to reduce a certain amount of incoming heat during hot summer days. Unfortunately, still this solution is not enough to reduce the temperature sufficiently. For that reason it is a common habit to use cooling pads that are supposed to ensure the supply of chilled air for the livestock building or fogging equipment to cool down the air with water usage. Both solutions bring wet litter due to excessive air humidity causing such problems like feet pad lesions, breast blisters and spoiled plumage.
COOL-R TECHNOLOGY
It is always better to solve the problem at its roots. This means a solution that eliminates the problem of heat penetration through the roof structure. Here COOL-R technology comes – COOL-R is highly-reflective roof coating, the application of which combines benefits resulting from reduction in temperature inside the building and providing perfect waterproofing coating of the roof surface.
Thanks to the applied technology, the COOL-R coating is characterized by a high SRI (Solar Reflectance Index = 107), which means that the coating not only reflects sunlight (as much as 86% of sun rays on the coating are reflected), but also gives back most (0.85) of gathered heat, thus causing reduction in temperature both on the roof and under its surface. Thanks to COOL-R, the roof temperature will be reduced by as much as 70%, and inside the building – by as much as 10˚C.
COOL-R technology is the only one in the world solution that was designed not only for reducing the roof temperature but also to protect it against all consequences of aging and water presence. Thus COOL-R provides continuous waterproofing coating of the roof area, protecting it against negative impact of water, without additional burden on its structure. Application of the COOL-R coating raises resistance of roof cover to weather conditions, including significant temperature differences and, to mechanical damage.
COOL-R is an ideal solution for buildings, where it is important to maintain proper temperature level, and in which standard air conditioning systems cannot be used. COOL-R allows to reduce the temperature inside the facilities and adjust it to the required optimum, improving poultry breeding conditions and reducing its costs. The application of COOL-R, by reduction of temperature, increases the quality of bred animals, eliminating all consequences of their overheating.
CASE STUDY – BROILERS FARM, GOMULIN, POLAND
To prove the results of COOL-R application in life conditions the formal research was established. Study of the impact of COOL-R on reduction in temperatures inside the poultry house was conducted in 2016, with participation of the Technical University of Łódź and support of Head of Vets in one of the biggest Polish white meat producers.
The research was planned to have 2 parts:
- COOL-R application and its influence on the thermal comfort inside the building
- The veterinary analysis of the effect on health and quality of the bred birds
The roof structure of the poultry house consisted of 2 parts: roof cover was made of trapezoidal metal sheet enriched by insulating foam, roof ceiling was made of trapezoidal metal sheet with insulation of mineral wool (20 cm). Thermal insulation was in place to ensure all year operating facility.
The specific research conditions were established:
- The broiler house was divided into 2 parts – COOL-R was applied on the one of them
- Temperature detectors were installed in 4 areas: on the roof surface, beneath the roof, inside the building, outside the building
- Temperature was measured daily, every 60 minutes
- The temperature monitoring covered 2 full breeding cycles
- The quality of the broilers was controlled at the end of second breeding cycle
Results of the research – part 1
Roof surface covered with COOL-R was not subjected to heating processes what resulted in lowering the temperature both on the roof and under the roof.
Chart 1: The reduction of roof temperature
Chart 2: The reduction of the temperature under the roof – it was lowered to the level of outside temperature
In the same time COOL-R reduced the average indoor temperature by 3˚C (this level of reduction was influenced by thermal insulation of the roof). Additionally, COOL-R decreased daily temperature gradient what protects the roof construction against negative consequences of roof aging.
Results of the research – part 2
The veterinary examination revealed significant differences between birds kept under COOL-R covered roof and no-COOL-R one. It says that COOL-R application significantly improved the quality of bred birds resulting in:
- Weight growth by 75g
- Less falls by 1.5%
- Better quality of carcasses what resulted in less seizures by 1.5%
Poultry house before and after COOL-R application
COOL-R IMPROVES THE PROFITS
COOL-R is an innovative technology, the application of which offers a unique opportunity to increase the profitability of any poultry farm, by improvement in the quality of bred animals. In this way, investment in COOL-R coating allows to increase profitability of conducted business.
