The Performance of Broiler Parent Stock under Improved Thermal Environment

Abstract

The present study was conducted to evaluate the improvement of fans and pad evaporative cooling of poultry houses and its effect on Broiler Breeder performance .The Broiler breeder houses used in the study is owned and operated by Arab Poultry Production and Processing Company. The objectives of the study are maintaining better environmental conditions in order to attain the maximum production and therefore increase the rate of economical returns for the company. Eight closed poultry houses capacity 30.000 birds (3750 birds \house) were used to collected the date during the rearing and the production periods. The rearing period started with one day old chicks and continued for 24 weeks while the production period started at the end of rearing and continued for 40 production weeks. The ventilation and cooling system used in these houses is the exhaust fans and pad evaporative cooling system in which wetted pad banks (12 m length X 0.91 m high ) are located along the middle of both side walls of the house while six teen exhaust fans power rate (10,000 m3 /h ) placed in beginning and end of the house . Due to negative pressure created by the exhaust fans, ambient air is forced through the wetted pads, where it is evaporative cooled and flows the longitudinally through the house towards the exhaust fans. The cooling performance was observed to be inefficient, the inside temperature was high and adversely effecting in broiler breeder performance. Accordingly, improvement of fans and pad evaporative cooling was done in four houses called Rehabilitated houses, in which the wetted pad bank area was increased (12 m length X 1.90 high) and the banks were located in beginning of both side walls of the house while six exhaust fans power rate (34000 m3 /h) are distributed in the end of house. Rehabilitation of poultry houses resulted in significant (P <.01) drop in the inside temperature throughout the rearing and the production period. The drop in temperature was about 4C0 during the winter season and 3 C0 during summer season. Improvement in inside temperature in rehabilitated houses resulted in significant (P<0.01) increase in feed intake for female and male broiler parent stock during the rearing period and consequently this resulted in significant (P<0.01) improvement in body weight for both sexes .The results also lead to significant (P<0.01) drop in mortality and less percentage of culled birds . In the production period the improvement in inside temperature in rehabilitated houses resulted in significant (P<0.01) increase in feed intake, egg production, egg weight and fertility. And these results lead to significant (P<0.01) drop in the second class egg. This improvement in ventilation increased the economical rerun by 8.2% per cycle for the rehabilitation houses, and decreased in total costs 4.38% to the non rehabilitation houses .