Ricardo Brauer Vigoderis

Evaluation of minimal ventilation and animal performance of broiler chickens in poultry houses during winter

The objective of this work was to evaluate a system of minimal or hygienic ventilation and its influence on thermal comfort, air quality and broiler zootechnical performance of poultries raised during the winter. Two similar sheds were used, with 9,500 Cobb broiler chickens per shed, during a complete productive cycle. In one of the sheds, a positive ventilation system that met minimal need of air renovation, composed by three fans with flow of 300 m3/min, was installed on the ceiling parallel to the floor. The other shed was considered control and did not have a ventilation system. For the first two weeks of age of the broilers, temperature and air relative humidity differed, and the system with minimal ventilation showed the worst comfort conditions. Broilers kept in no ventilation system showed the best results for slaughter weight (with ventilation - 1.549; with no ventilation - 1.577 kg), food conversion (with ventilation - 1.63 kg/kg and with no ventilation - 1.59 kg/kg) and productive efficiency (with ventilation - 285 and without ventilation - 297). There were some differences for concentration of contaminant gases, which were lower in the system with minimal ventilation. The system with minimum ventilation, the way it was designed in the experiment, significantly decreases the temperature inside the poultry shed, compromising the thermal comfort and damaging animal performance. Although the system with minimum ventilation results in lower gas concentrations, none of systems promotes average concentration of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide harmful to birds.The objective of this work was to evaluate a system of minimal or hygienic ventilation and its influence on thermal comfort, air quality and broiler zootechnical performance of poultries raised during the winter. Two similar sheds were used, with 9,500 Cobb broiler chickens per shed, during a complete productive cycle. In one of the sheds, a positive ventilation system that met minimal need of air renovation, composed by three fans with flow of 300 m3/min, was installed on the ceiling parallel to the floor. The other shed was considered control and did not have a ventilation system. For the first two weeks of age of the broilers, temperature and air relative humidity differed, and the system with minimal ventilation showed the worst comfort conditions. Broilers kept in no ventilation system showed the best results for slaughter weight (with ventilation 1.549; with no ventilation 1.577 kg), food conversion (with ventilation 1.63 kg/kg and with no ventilation 1.59 kg/kg) and productive efficiency (with ventilation 285 and without ventilation 297). There were some differences for concentration of contaminant gases, which were lower in the system with minimal ventilation. The system with minimum ventilation, the way it was designed in the experiment, significantly decreases the temperature inside the poultry shed, compromising the thermal comfort and damaging animal performance. Although the system with minimum ventilation results in lower gas concentrations, none of systems promotes average concentration of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide harmful to birds.

Bem-estar na produção de frango de corte em diferentes sistemas de criação

This research was carried out to evaluate different housing systems for broiler chickens production, characterizing the thermal environment, physiological parameters and animal behavior. The experiment was conducted in a production cycle of 42 days, in the city of Carpina, state of Pernambuco, Brazil, at the Experimental Station for Small Animals of the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE). The survey was developed in production module divided into 15 boxes with 10 birds per box and density of the 10 birds per m2, totaling 150 birds, submitted to the three housing systems: semi-confined with 3m2 per broiler of paddock area (SC 3), semi-confined with 6m2 per broiler of paddock area (SC 6) and total confinement (CONF). The experimental design for data general analysis was completely randomized (CRD), in split plots, being the weeks allocated in the plots and the accommodation systems (SC 3, SC 6, CONF and EXT) in the sub-plots with the averages compared through the Tukey test. The meteorological variables, comfort indexes and physiological parameters indicated the semi-confined system of accommodation SC 3 as one that allowed better natural conditioning heat to the birds, presenting the average values of 25.4oC, 69.9 kJ kg-1, 75.7, 65.12 movements min-1 and 41.92oC for dry bulb temperature, enthalpy, black globe humidity index, respiratory rate and cloacal temperature, respectively. The birds subjected to the semi-confined system SC 3 were those that had better opportunity to express their natural behavior and explore the external environment to the module of production, leveraging the animal welfare.

Performance evaluation of broilers under different heating systems in the south of Brazil.

The traditional heating systems of commercial farms, usually composed of infrared light bulbs and furnaces, have shown to be inefficient for the satisfactory heating of broiler facilities (mainly in the south of Brazil), resulting in temperatures below the range of comfort of the birds. Thereby, this research aimed to evaluate the efficiency of heating systems more used in facilities located in the south of the Brazil, using the thermal comfort and air psychrometric conditions, as well as the influence of those factors in animal performance, fuel consumption and cost. The research was developed at nine commercial poultry facilities, where three different heating systems (infrared light bulbs, furnace with indirect air heating, and radiant experimental system with supplemental heating of infrared light bulbs) were used. The more common indexes: weight gain, feed consumption, feed conversion, water consumption, and the factor production were used to evaluate animal performance. In the conditions of accomplishment of this experiment and for the obtained results, it was concluded that the three air heating systems studied behaved in different ways in relation to the amount of energy produced and consequent heating efficiency for the inside the facilities. The best results was found for the conjugated system with experimental radiant system + infrared light bulbs, followed by the furnace systems, and infrared light bulbs, in that order. None of the heating systems kept the birds in thermal comfort conditions during the whole period of the day.

Air Quality inside Broiler Facilities Located in the South of Brazil in Winter Conditions

Brazilian poultry facilities offer greater possibility for natural ventilation as compared to facilities placed in colder countries. However, the information about gas concentrations inside these buildings is limited. These gas concentrations can be harmful to workers and animal health. Thus, the objective of this work was monitoring the gas concentrations most commonly found inside poultry production environment and the influence of three different heating systems in the gas concentrations. The research was developed at nine commercial poultry facilities, where CO, CO2 and NH3 concentrations inside the production environment were evaluated. It can be concluded that despite instantaneous concentrations of NH3 and CO being found at levels above recommended by literature, the health of animals was not affected, which could be shown by the animal performance values.

Chemical Characterization Of The Wastewater Of Frog Production

In the decade of 90 there was reduction in the number of facilities for the production of frogs in Brazil, although it has had significant increase of the production, since the medium production of the frog facilities that was from 40 to 100 kg a month, it started to be from 200 to 300 kg. That increase was attributed to the improvements in the facilities, more appropriate rations, use of greenhouses for the maintenance of the temperature, creation of animal indexes and larger knowledge of the animal and of production. Among the existent production systems, It stands out the Anfigranja system. The handling of that system, in the section of it recreates, it implicates in an or more daily renewals of water, depending on some factors as thermal atmosphere, production apprenticeship, ration type, among other, generating an amount reasonable wastewaters. Such wastewaters are, usually, thrown in the rivers without a previous treatment, causing several damages to the environment. Scarce they are the works of characterization of the wastewaters of the frog production, consequently is an ignorance of it pollution degree, provoked by this activity. In agreement with the obtained results it could be verified that the wastewater originating from the system of production of frogs in study, presents values of BOD and QOD above the acceptable for release in courses of water, needing a system of previous treatment. In general, all of the analyzed parameters, for unit of animal weight, followed a decreasing tendency with the increase of the medium weight of animals. the values showed that the animals with smaller weight producted larger amount of residues, for unit of weight, since the production of pollutants stayed higher when the load was divided by the corporal weight of the frogs.