Countries with a growing industry are seen more and more to begin using large scale farming (poutry houses). Because the environment conditions are different from our western environment conditions (hotter and dryer), it will take another approach to handle the climate in e.g. a poultry house. Tunnel ventilation is one of the solutions. The cooling effect of wind-chill is used. Does anyone have experience with interpreting the following parameters for tunnel ventilation: breed, age, temperature, humidity, feathers, air speed and house construction? Is tunnel ventilation the only solution or are there other systems? Are there cases on this topic?
For hotter and dryer environmental conditions, the following is suitable: total confinement poultry housing, installing evaporative cooling pads and fans system, orienting the building east-west to reduce sun intrusion meanwhile the direction of prevailing summer wind should be in the same direction of the air exhausted by the extractor fans, using insulation materials, and installing automatic curtains to be opened when the weather is suitable.
Thank you Mohamed Samer for your answer and it is true what you’re saying but we apply controlled ventilation. I’m looking for the relation between breed, age, temperature, humidity (evaporation), feathers, and air speed. Air speed and humidity provide the wind-chill factor (temperature), but breed, feathers and age also affects the wind-chill factor. I’m looking for an equation between these parameters.
Sure it is possible to calculate the heat loss from the birds as a function of all the environmental and animal based parameters you mention. For such calculation thermal energetic equations like those presented by Turnpenny are useful (find the paper: Thermal balance of livestock: 1. A parsimonious model). Of course the equations are non-linear and iterative approaches are required. For a simpler model you could refer to the work of Bakken (1985), he came up with the concept of the "standard operative temperature" (Operative and Standard Operative Temperature: Tools for Thermal Energetics Studies), which is a simple formula to use. Of course all the resistances to heat loss must still be known - but this equation explicitly quantifies the wind-chill effect. You can then back calculate with knowledge of the thermoneutral zone to find the limiting air temperature or velocity before an animal/bird becomes chilled.
While all this is possible the question is how effective is it when applied to a packed poultry house, where the boundary layer effect becomes quite significant as function of distance from the inlet. This requires coupling the animal thermo-energetics with physics-based modelling to see the full effect. Very interesting indeed!!
Its really nice paper for understanding thermal relation, Tomas Norton. when weather is dry and hotter then we have to keep in mind that windchill effects differently on breed, age, weight and feather status of the birds. Equally humid air with same speed will be sensed in different ways. we have also keep in mind that when outside air is dry then its water keeping ability is much more than hot and humid air that also have its own credibility on the topic.
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