Sandro José Paixão

Minimum Ventilation Systems and their Effects on the Initial Stage of Turkey Production

This study aimed at evaluating the live performance of turkeys during the initial stage of production (1-26 days of age) and to map the environmental variables inside turkey houses, such as temperature, relative humidity, CO 2 concentration, at two distinct minimum ventilation systems. House 1 (H1) was equipped with a negative-pressure ventilation system and House 2 (H2) was equipped with a positivepressure ventilation system. This study was performed in commercial poultry houses, located in Francisco Beltrao, Parana, Brazil, in June, 2008. A number of 14,000 turkeys toms at the same age, provided by the same local hatchery and were housed at a stocking density of 23 birds m -2 . Three 13 m 2 boxes with 300 turkeys each were placed inside the poultry houses. All treatments were assigned for the birds inside each of the three boxes. The poultry barns were virtually divided in eight equally distributed in areas where the environmental variables were recorded. The performance parameters measured were weight gain, feed conversion and mortality rate, recorded weekly. Analysis of variance and F-tests were performed to compare results within different environmental conditions, using MINITAB 14 statistical software. The ventilation systems did not significantly influence CO 2 concentrations (p = 0.489), whereas temperature (p = 0.016) and relative humidity (p = 0.0001) and feed conversion (p = 0.001) were significantly affected by ventilation system. Temperature and relative humidity in H2 (positive pressure ventilation system) was found to be less aversive than those in H1 (negative pressure system). Also, bids in H2 presented lower feed conversions than those in H1.

Performance and Preference of Broiler Chickens under Different Light Sources

The present study evaluated the preference and the production performance of broiler chickens exposed to different lighting sources. The first portion of this study evaluated bird preference to white and yellow lighting provided by Light-Emitting Diodes (LED). Bird preference was assessed through images recorded during the experiment. The second portion of this study evaluated the performance of broiler chickens under the exposure of Light –Emitting Diodes and Compact Fluorescent bulbs. Performance was assessed in terms of mortality rate, bird weight, weight gain, feed consumption and feed conversion.