21/02/2023
Dr. Xavier Asensio, Aviagen SAU Technical Director for Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, was in charge of the presentation on “Ensuring high productive performance for our birds” during the LPN Congress 2018.
Protocol for the control of ventilation
In recent years, many controlled environment facilities have been built for broilers and rearing and laying breeders. These new facilities are designed to give birds greater comfort and thus be able to express their genetic potential.
The poultry houses have been built with materials that provide good thermal insulation and tightness; Likewise, they are highly technical and allow to manage and control of many parameters, from temperature, through humidity, CO2, the speed of the air at the entrance, and on the litter or the negative pressure.
At the same time that the birds have been improving their performance, it is also necessary to adjust more precisely all the parameters related to environmental control to achieve good profitability.
Therefore, it is essential to work with good installations, know them perfectly to handle them well, and constantly check them to correct deviations derived from their age and continued use.
The importance of regular scheduling reviews
It is evident that over the years, the probes need to be calibrated, the tightness can become poorer, and the performance of the fans can degrade. A poorly maintained poultry house stops behaving correctly and stops being predictable. Therefore, when we correct the environmental conditions, the response may not be adequate, or the house may simply no longer function normally.
Consequently, it is necessary to schedule periodic inspections of the buildings to assess the proper functioning of their components and implement corrective measures if failures are detected. Among the many points to check, it is vital to check the correct negative pressure, the buildings’ tightness, the fans’ capacity, the hatches’ opening, and the air’s speed. These parameters are critical since they influence the air movement inside the poultry house, specifically on its speed at the entrance, the birds’ level, and its circuit.
Whether working with minimum ventilation or if the outside temperature is high and we work by temperature, it is essential to correctly manage these parameters to comfort the birds, thus maintaining growth, correct feed conversion, and avoiding pathologies.
To carry out these checks, we need to have to measure material. Among others, a depression gauge, an anemometer, a thermographic camera, and a tachometer are necessary. This material must be precise and periodically calibrated to avoid readings that lead us to incorrect conclusions.
Likewise, the measurements inside the warehouses must always be carried out in the same way, following protocols that mark us in which positions we must locate ourselves and how we must place the instruments to correct the measurements.
Once the measurements have been made, they must be compared with the expected parameters or even with the readings that the ventilation regulator is giving us at that very moment. The results of these comparisons will tell us if there are deviations and, therefore, if corrective maintenance actions should be carried out.
Sanitary voids are an excellent time to check if the environmental control of our farms is correct. In addition, a periodic program for checking buildings and maintenance is essential. It should be part of our work routines, for example, cleaning and disinfection or maintenance of generator sets.
