Poultry ventilation

Ventilation in a poultry house supplies fresh air that is essential to sustain life. It also helps reduce the extremes of temperature, humidity and air contamination to tolerable limits for confined chickens. Improved ventilation systems have also made possible the high density populations of livestock and poultry in confinement, thus reducing the building cost per unit housed. This is economically important since it reduces production and labour costs. Ventilation air removes excess heat, moisture, dust and odours from the building and, at the same time, dilutes airborne disease organisms. Properly designed winter systems also conserve energy by utilising heat generated by the birds. Providing proper ventilation to poultry is an art but it can be mastered by any determined and willing poultry grower. It is a challenge, however, since poultry houses are different and ventilation requirements change with time of day, season, temperature, humidity, wind, bird age and density.