Why is it important to run fans at night?

Why is it important to run fans at night?

1. The temperature difference between the chicken body and the air is larger at night so that it is easier to remove heat from the chicken body, thus reducing the temperature of the chicken body. It is important to keep in mind that even tunnel ventilated chicken houses with maximum cooling potential will have many times during the day when the bird body temperature will rise. As body temperature rises, feed intake decreases, resulting in reduced weight gain; panting begins to increase, and feed-to-feed ratio increases.

At night the air temperature starts to drop, it is important that we maintain the air flowing through the birds long enough to ensure that the body temperature of the birds drops to normal levels, this process is affected by many factors and usually takes 6 hours or more long time.

We have to keep in mind that once the body temperature drops, the birds will start eating again. Of course this results in increased heat production and increased body temperature, so air movement needs to be maintained to keep the flock cool at night.

2. The need for increased air movement at night is that the RH at night in most chicken farming areas is between 80% and 95%. Regardless of the air temperature, the flock primarily relies on the evaporation of moisture from its respiratory system to cool itself. So although the air temperature may be cooler at night, the birds will not benefit from the cooler temperatures as much as you might think, because higher humidity will have an adverse effect on evaporative cooling from the bird's respiratory system. By increasing air movement at night, more heat is removed, reducing the need for the flock to cool itself by evaporating moisture through the respiratory system.

On a hot, humid afternoon in summer, there are older flocks in the coop. All longitudinal fans and cooling pads are in operation. You cleaned the fan shutters and recently replaced the conveyor belt. Also you checked the pads, they were evenly wetted and looked reasonably clean. But most of the birds are panting and remembering that cooling the flock is a 24 hour job will not adversely affect your production performance.

Many times farmers spend too much time paying attention to the condition of the chicken coop during the day and not enough attention to the condition of the chicken coop at night. In fact most farmers do everything they can to keep their flocks comfortable during the day. In fact, farmers usually need to pay more attention to how to cool the chickens at night. Every summer, due to the intentional or unintentional reduction of the number of fan operations at night, the insufficient cooling of the chicken flock has a great impact on the feeding performance.

The benefits of running fans at night have been known for some time. The first thing to do in a naturally ventilated house is to set the thermostat on the circulation fan 5 to 10 degrees lower than normal, which will keep the fan running longer at night.

Chicken houses with circulating fan thermostats set 10 degrees below normal ventilation guidelines had an average weight gain of 0.02 to 0.18 pounds and a feed-to-meat ratio reduction of 1 to 3 points. The death rate would be reduced by 0.2% to 1.2%. When the setting of the thermostat of the circulation fan was 5 degrees lower than the normal ventilation value, there was no difference in the breeding performance between the two. This shows little difference in nighttime cooling.

Researchers at the USDA Poultry Laboratory in Starkville recently conducted a study to examine the potential benefits of maintaining higher nighttime wind speeds on hot days.

The study was conducted in pens in tunnel-ventilated chicken houses. In the study, the roosters were treated in three ways: static wind speed, daytime wind speed of 550 ft/min, night wind speed of 300 ft/min, and 24-hour wind speed of 550 ft/min. Daytime air temperatures top around 86°F (65% Rh) and lows around 77°F (87% Rh).

Weight gain and FCR were measured at two different time periods: 37 to 44 days of age and 44 to 51 days of age

Weekly weight gain and feed-to-meat ratio for two different study periods. The test group (with 550 ft/min wind maintained 24 hours a day) had significantly higher weight gain and FGR. The two-week study showed that increasing night air velocity from 300 ft/min to 550 ft/min increased body gain by 0.15 lb and decreased feed to meat ratio by 0.15 lb feed/lb gain.

Retech has been exploring and studying Kenya poultry market for many years, and we’re very familiar with the local market, helped many chicken farmers to achieve great success by renovating their farms and upgrading the equipment, with more than 30 years of production experience, we can design and manufacture both chicken house and chicken cage based on your need and requirement.

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