Determinação do balanço de calor em frangos de corte por meio das temperaturas corporais

Abstract

Determination of heat balance in broiler chickens through body temperatures The aim of this research was to evaluate thermal behaviour of different broiler chicken strains submitted to stress and comfort through lifecycle. Thereunto, an experiment was accomplished in climatic chamber, during the six weeks of life of the birds, with the animals submitted to two environmental conditions: comfort and stress. Four treatments were adopted, defined as: treatment C60 (comfort condition), with 60 minutes of exposure; treatment E30, treatment E60 and treatment E90 (stress condition), with 30, 60 and 90 minutes of exposure, respectively. Experimental design adopted was a 4 x 4 latin square, characterized by four lots of birds, exposed to the four treatments, in the first four days of each week. Broiler, from Avian and Cobb strains, were divided in lots of 48 birds per week, totalizing 96 animals, and totalizing 586 animals, both sexes, during all experimental period. Climatic variables adopted to comfort and stress conditions differd through the weeks, once that thermal requirements of broiler chickens differ throughout growing cycle. In the first chapter, physiological variables respiration rate and cloacal temperature were studied, stipulating in this way, bands to comfort and stress conditions. Based on these variables, the tolerance of strains to thermal stress was studied, and was observed that Cobb strain is more tolerant to heat stress. In the second chapter, the influence of exposure time on superficial temperature was studied in the following body regions: wing, head, feet, back and comb. Exposure time did not influence, in none of weeks, superficial temperature of birds, with significative differences only among comfort and stress conditions. Based on these boards, and on these body regions, multiple linear regression models were determined to each week of lifecycle, to both strains, being named as TSM Nascimento. The selection of the models was done by maximum likelihood method, by Akaike's criteria (AIC) and by qui-square test to verify the number of body regions included in each one of the models. In the third chapter, was accomplished sensible and latent heat balance of the birds, based on superficial temperature models TSM Nascimento, core body temperature (adopted in the research as cloacal temperature) and on environmental variables collected during the research, to both strains. It was observed that in comfort condition, from third week of lifecycle and on, sensible exchanges corresponded for up to 80% of the total exchanges. In thermal stress, latent exchanges corresponded for up to 84% of the total. It was verified that broiler chickens are more susceptible to thermal stress in the third week of lifecycle.

Cloacal and Surface Temperatures of Broilers Subject to Thermal Stress

“…Considering the importance of statistical analysis for correlation equations formulation between tclo as a function of tsur (Nascimento, 2010), [eq. (4)] was adjusted in which R 2 was 0.75.…”

Energy balance in the poultry-shed system and its influence on broiler performance

“…Thermodynamic models, as described by NASCIMENTO (2010), were adopted, based on knowledge of the energy transfer for broilers in climate chambers.…”