Respostas fisiológicas e comportamentais de frangos de corte em aviários com diferentes sistemas de aquecimento: avaliação e modelagem CFD

Abstract

Maintaining the thermal conditions within the thermo-neutral range in the breeding environment for broiler chicken is of great importance so that the animals do not suffer thermal stress from low or high temperatures. It is known that unfavorable environmental conditions can cause a decrease in wellbeing, compromising the growth and performance of birds. In view of the above, this work had as general objective to evaluate two different heating systems regarding the environmental, physiological and behavioral variables in the first three weeks of life of broiler chicken in a commercial poultry for broilers and to evaluate an industrial heating system by CFD simulation in the first week of life. The present study was conducted at a commercial poultry farm located in the western mesoregion of Minas Gerais during the spring season of 2010, using two sheds with different heating systems (shed A - artisanal furnace with biomass burning and shed B - industrial furnace with biomass burning), which were used to create 28,000 male chickens of the Cobb lineage per shed. For the evaluation of the environmental variables, data of air temperature (°C), black globe temperature (°C), relative humidity (%) and temperature and relative humidity index (UI) were calculated black globe temperature (ITGU). As for the physiological variables, respiratory rate (FR), cloacal temperature (Tcloacal), skin temperature (Tpele) and temperature of feather (Tpena) were evaluated. The FR variable presented values above the comfort limit, which is 40 mov. min-1 and the other variables presented values considered within comfort. Regarding behavior, most of the time the birds were calm, feeding themselves and with drowsiness. Through the CFD simulation it was possible to predict that the installation did not provide a homogeneous heating system throughout the extension of the aviary and, consequently, the environment presented unfavorable conditions during almost all the evaluation period.