Özet:

: Heat stress is a concern for turkeys in naturally ventilated houses. Chamber and room studies were used to assess heat stress at moderate temperatures (<25 °C) and low airspeeds on grown tom turkeys. In the chamber study, four ventilation rates × two temperatures (thermal comfort and thermal stress, 11 °C above thermal comfort) were applied to 13- to 19-week birds. Very small differences in airspeeds among the four treatments masked subcutaneous, cloacal, and infrared (IR) temperature differences at both temperatures. In the room study, four ventilation rates (0.07 m 3·min −1·kg −1 or 100%, 75%, 50%, and 30% or Control) were applied to 21-week toms housed at <23 °C. The Control treatment had significantly higher whole-body and head temperatures vs. the other treatments. Only 100% had higher weight gain vs. 50%; hematology was unaffected by treatment. Higher ventilation rates reduced heat stress due to lower room temperatures, not airspeed differences, which were very low. The low-cost IR camera detected a heat stress difference ≥ 0.8 °C, corresponding to wind chill of 0.8 °C due to an airspeed of 0.8 m·s −1 vs. still air on the USDA broiler wind chill curve. Machine vision combined with IR thermography could alleviate real-time poultry heat stress.

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