Keeping Birds Cool in Hot Weather

Since summer is approaching, I looked up an article focusing on keeping birds cool in hot weather. The link to this site is http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/861/keeping-birds-cool-in-hot-weather. The article talks about summertime management and how it is crucial for growers to achieve maximum weight gains and optimum feed conversion while preventing bird loss due to heat exhaustion. The summary decribes some steps that can be taken during hot weather ventilation. It also provides graphs diplaying different lengths of air flow and how important ditirbution is. There are four main topics covered air speed distribution, bird distribution, nighttime cooling and equiptment and house maintenance. One fact that was stated relating to nighttime cooling is that even though the temperature may drop and the chickens aren't panting does not mean they're not hot. Not providing fans at night to save money on electric may hurt you in the long run with production decrease and even mortality. Overall, this article focuses on management routines that are some times taken for granted and simple procedures we should not over look.