POULTRY GROWER NEWSLETTER

With the start of the New Year, I am looking forward to getting out and meeting you face-to-face. In the meantime, if you need to contact me, please feel free to call my office number at (919) 542-8202. I wish all of you a very prosperous, healthy and safe new year!

1. Seal all house air leaks. You cannot properly ventilate a loose house. We want all air to come in through the inlets, not through leaks and cracks. Cold air falls, and cold outside air leaking through cracks, curtains, holes and any other unwanted opening drops toward the floor, causing condensation, wet litter, cake and poor bird performance. Test house tightness by static pressure: with all doors, curtains and inlets of the house closed and one 48-inch, 20,000-cfm fan turned on, we should be able to pull a negative static pressure of 0.15 inches. If the number is lower than 0.15, too much air is coming through leaks and cracks. The higher the number from the static pressure test, the tighter the house.

2. Insulate before you ventilate. We cannot maintain good environment in a poultry house in cold weather if we have no way to keep the heat in. Ceiling insulation should be approximately R-19. Check your insulation for tears, holes and places where insulation may have shifted and there is no insulation at all. Consider insulating end walls, end doors, and other parts of the house that are not currently insulated.

3. Set the fan timer for the right minimum ventilation rate, according to bird age. Be sure all fans are controlled by a single timer. The ventilation rate needed usually ranges from about 0.10 cfm/bird in week one to about 0.90 cfm/bird by week eight. Never ventilate with less than two 36-inch fans. Single 36-inch fan ventilation usually will not yield a high enough static pressure to ventilate properly. Heat moves toward fans, so ventilating with a single 48-inch fan concentrates heat in that end of the house. Running two or more minimum ventilation fans helps maintain temperature uniformity, and that will boost flock performance.

4. Increase fan timer settings (ventilation rate) each week from day one through catch. Fan run-time must be increased weekly to handle the increased moisture birds give off as they grow. As noted in Rule #3, the rate needed typically increases from about one-tenth a cfm per bird to almost a full cfm per bird. Note that having a properly set minimum ventilation timer is just as important at the end of the growout as it is in the beginning of the growout. Later in a growout, thermostat control usually will override the timer control most of the time. However, the minimum ventilation timer must remain properly set to take care of air quality if and when higher temperatures no longer trigger thermostat control.

5. Maintain minimum ventilation no matter what the outside or inside conditions are. Without at least the minimum ventilation rate, inside air quality will deteriorate and litter moisture and ammonia problems will occur. The amount of house heat lost because of minimum ventilation is small, and well spent to avoid moisture problems. Remember also that you can and must ventilate even if a cold rain is falling outside. When cold air is heated its moisture holding capacity increases. When air is heated 20 degrees its relative humidity will be cut about in half, and therefore its ability to pick up water just about doubles. The cold air we bring into the house in the wintertime gets warmed up and dried out, so it is able to carry excess moisture out of the house through the ventilation fans. The only way to remove moisture from the litter in a poultry house is through ventilation.

6. Bring cool outside air into the house high above the birds, with enough velocity to mix with warm inside air before contacting birds. Doing this well requires a tight house operating in the static pressure range of around 0.10, and it requires properly designed and adjusted air inlets. It takes a static pressure of approximately 0.10 inches to throw air 20 feet to the center of the house. Static pressure controlled vent boxes do the best job. Getting a good “jet-stream” of incoming air along the ceiling avoids chilling birds and the mixing action improves heating fuel usage efficiency by preventing warm air produced by birds, furnaces and brooders from rising to the ceiling and staying there. Mixing fans in the house can also help promote temperature uniformity and reduce fuel usage.

7. If wet litter and/or ammonia becomes a problem, increase the minimum ventilation rate. This means increasing the fan run-time. Birds deposit about 2 pounds of water into the house for every pound of feed they eat. So there is a lot of water deposited into a poultry house during a grow out. Fecal material plus excessive moisture causes ammonia, and this is worse when litter moisture is high. Proper ventilation is the only way to remove the moisture from the litter. Growers who have tried to operate minimum ventilation fans using a humidistat to turn fans on and off have found this does not work. Humidistats can’t hold their accuracy in the environment of today’s poultry houses. A good rule of thumb to judge litter moisture content is to squeeze a handful of litter. If it sticks together tightly and remains in a ball, it is too wet. If it sticks together only slightly, it has the proper moisture content. If it doesn’t hold together at all, it is too dry.

8. If increased ventilation rate does not solve a wet letter problem, add a small amount of heat. Sometimes when a house has slick litter, more fan run time may not solve the problem. This usually means the house needs a little more furnace or brooder heat to help lower the humidity and thus facilitate moisture removal. It may be possible to dry out a house by slightly increasing fan run time during the warmest part of the day when humidity is low. If this doesn’t work heat must be added.

9. If the house gets too dusty and litter is too dry, reduce the minimum ventilation rate. This situation usually means we are over-ventilating, and calls for lowering the fan on-time setting.

10. If a house gets too warm, look at the thermostat setting, not the fan timer setting. The minimum ventilation timer setting is for moisture removal and air quality, not temperature control. When we need to make it cooler in the house, a thermostat or controller temperature set point is used to override the ventilation timer and add more ventilation. In this mode we are now ventilating at a higher rate for temperature control purposes, and fan operation is determined by the thermostat or controller set point. Do not confuse this with minimum ventilation, which is timer-operated.

11. Adjust backup thermostat settings, curtain drops, and alarms from day one to catch. It is possible even in wintertime to lose birds due to high heat and high humidity if power fails or fans fail to operate. With larger birds, just a few minutes in a totally enclosed house with no ventilation can elevate temperatures as much as 20 degrees F, causing suffocation and death. Protect yourself and your birds by maintaining recommended backup settings throughout the grow out. A good rule of thumb is to set backups and alarms at ten degrees above and below target temperature.

• Anticipate risks to your operation and minimize them.
• Identify areas or activities where threats might occur and increase security in those areas.
• Consult with experts when you are developing your plan. Include your veterinarian, Extension agent, university scientist, and state Department of Agriculture experts.
• Plan how you will respond to threats or tampering with your animals, crops, equipment, chemicals, supplies, and energy and water sources.
• Update your plan regularly. Make sure you have contact names and telephone numbers.
• Include how you’ll notify appropriate local law enforcement officials, as well as federal and state agriculture officials in your plan.

Educate
Train employees and customers. Screen potential hires.

• Educate your employees and customers on how important it is to be alert for signs of possible tampering with crops, livestock, supplies, equipment, and facilities.
• Consider regular background checks on all employees; check references.
• Develop a system to identify employees and visitors; schedule arrivals and departures.
• Train all employees on security. Include periodic refresher training.

Secure
Secure hazardous materials, energy and water sources, and such production inputs as feed and nutrients.