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Direct surface wetting sprinkler system to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads in meat chicken production: indoor thermal environment, water usage, litter moisture content, live market weights, and mortalities

An overhead sprinkler system that directly applies water onto meat chickens in tunnel ventilated houses was evaluated and compared with a conventional evaporative cooling pad system at 2 commercial farms in south-eastern Queensland, Australia. The sprinkler system was used to reduce the use of evapo...

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Autores principales: Dunlop, Mark W., McAuley, Jim
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8044692/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33799118
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2021.101078
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author Dunlop, Mark W.
McAuley, Jim
author_facet Dunlop, Mark W.
McAuley, Jim
author_sort Dunlop, Mark W.
collection PubMed
description An overhead sprinkler system that directly applies water onto meat chickens in tunnel ventilated houses was evaluated and compared with a conventional evaporative cooling pad system at 2 commercial farms in south-eastern Queensland, Australia. The sprinkler system was used to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads as the primary cooling system but not replace evaporative cooling pads altogether. The sprinkler system used low water pressure and comprised evenly spaced sprinklers and a programmable controller. Water was applied intermittently based on house temperature and a temperature program that was related to bird age. The study was conducted over 6 sequential grow-outs during a 1-year period. Air temperature, relative humidity, litter moisture content, cooling water usage, live market weight, and mortality were assessed during the study. The effect of sprinklers on these measured parameters was complicated by interactions with farm, batch, bird age, and time of day. We found that, in general, houses with combined sprinkler and evaporative cooling pad systems used less water, while having similar litter moisture content, live market weight, and mortality compared with control houses that were fitted with conventional evaporative cooling pads. When evaporative cooling was required, sprinkler houses had warmer air temperature but lower relative humidity than the control houses. Bird comfort due to the direct cooling effect of water evaporating off the birds was not directly assessed during this study but was inferred from thermal camera images and from live weight and mortality data. This was the first study in Australia involving this sprinkler system, and we suggest that the sprinkler system design and operation may require some adaptation to better suit Australian poultry house design and climatic conditions, including the need for additional sprinklers to improve coverage, lower set-point temperatures, and altering sprinkler spacing to suit ceiling baffle curtains (if fitted).
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spelling pubmed-80446922021-04-16 Direct surface wetting sprinkler system to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads in meat chicken production: indoor thermal environment, water usage, litter moisture content, live market weights, and mortalities Dunlop, Mark W. McAuley, Jim Poult Sci Full Length Article An overhead sprinkler system that directly applies water onto meat chickens in tunnel ventilated houses was evaluated and compared with a conventional evaporative cooling pad system at 2 commercial farms in south-eastern Queensland, Australia. The sprinkler system was used to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads as the primary cooling system but not replace evaporative cooling pads altogether. The sprinkler system used low water pressure and comprised evenly spaced sprinklers and a programmable controller. Water was applied intermittently based on house temperature and a temperature program that was related to bird age. The study was conducted over 6 sequential grow-outs during a 1-year period. Air temperature, relative humidity, litter moisture content, cooling water usage, live market weight, and mortality were assessed during the study. The effect of sprinklers on these measured parameters was complicated by interactions with farm, batch, bird age, and time of day. We found that, in general, houses with combined sprinkler and evaporative cooling pad systems used less water, while having similar litter moisture content, live market weight, and mortality compared with control houses that were fitted with conventional evaporative cooling pads. When evaporative cooling was required, sprinkler houses had warmer air temperature but lower relative humidity than the control houses. Bird comfort due to the direct cooling effect of water evaporating off the birds was not directly assessed during this study but was inferred from thermal camera images and from live weight and mortality data. This was the first study in Australia involving this sprinkler system, and we suggest that the sprinkler system design and operation may require some adaptation to better suit Australian poultry house design and climatic conditions, including the need for additional sprinklers to improve coverage, lower set-point temperatures, and altering sprinkler spacing to suit ceiling baffle curtains (if fitted). Elsevier 2021-03-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8044692/ /pubmed/33799118 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2021.101078 Text en Crown Copyright © 2021 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Poultry Science Association Inc. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Full Length Article
Dunlop, Mark W.
McAuley, Jim
Direct surface wetting sprinkler system to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads in meat chicken production: indoor thermal environment, water usage, litter moisture content, live market weights, and mortalities
title Direct surface wetting sprinkler system to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads in meat chicken production: indoor thermal environment, water usage, litter moisture content, live market weights, and mortalities
title_full Direct surface wetting sprinkler system to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads in meat chicken production: indoor thermal environment, water usage, litter moisture content, live market weights, and mortalities
title_fullStr Direct surface wetting sprinkler system to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads in meat chicken production: indoor thermal environment, water usage, litter moisture content, live market weights, and mortalities
title_full_unstemmed Direct surface wetting sprinkler system to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads in meat chicken production: indoor thermal environment, water usage, litter moisture content, live market weights, and mortalities
title_short Direct surface wetting sprinkler system to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads in meat chicken production: indoor thermal environment, water usage, litter moisture content, live market weights, and mortalities
title_sort direct surface wetting sprinkler system to reduce the use of evaporative cooling pads in meat chicken production: indoor thermal environment, water usage, litter moisture content, live market weights, and mortalities
topic Full Length Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8044692/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33799118
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2021.101078
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