Dunlop Mark W, McAuley Jim
Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Queensland Government, Toowoomba Qld 4350, Australia.
Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Queensland Government, Toowoomba Qld 4350, Australia.
Poult Sci. 2021 May;100(5):101078. doi: 10.1016/j.psj.2021.101078. Epub 2021 Mar 1.
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).
在澳大利亚昆士兰州东南部的2个商业农场，对一种直接向隧道通风鸡舍中的肉鸡喷水的顶喷式洒水系统进行了评估，并与传统的蒸发冷却垫系统进行了比较。该洒水系统用于减少作为主要冷却系统的蒸发冷却垫的使用，但并非完全取代蒸发冷却垫。洒水系统采用低水压，由间距均匀的喷头和可编程控制器组成。根据鸡舍温度和与鸡龄相关的温度程序间歇性地喷水。该研究在1年期间内连续进行了6批肉鸡养殖。在研究过程中评估了气温湿度、垫料含水量、冷却用水、活鸡出栏体重和死亡率。喷头对这些测量参数的影响因农场、批次、鸡龄和一天中的时间的相互作用而变得复杂。我们发现，一般来说，与安装了传统蒸发冷却垫的对照鸡舍相比，采用洒水和蒸发冷却垫组合系统的鸡舍用水量更少，同时垫料含水量、活鸡出栏体重和死亡率相似。当需要蒸发冷却时，安装洒水系统的鸡舍气温较高，但相对湿度低于对照鸡舍。本研究期间未直接评估水从鸡身上蒸发的直接冷却效果给鸡带来的舒适度，但从热成像相机图像以及活鸡体重和死亡率数据中推断出了相关情况。这是澳大利亚首次涉及该洒水系统的研究，我们建议该洒水系统的设计和运行可能需要进行一些调整，以更好地适应澳大利亚的禽舍设计和气候条件，包括需要增加喷头以提高覆盖范围、降低设定温度，以及改变喷头间距以适应天花板挡板窗帘（如果安装）。
