Improving thermal confort of young chicks brooding by introducing fire wall brooding technology system

Abstract

owing to the unavailability of electric power it is difficult to adopt electric brooders by the African rural household poultry producers. Application of fire wall brooding technology for brooding chicks can solve the problem efficiently. The fire wall is heated by inserting the burning material such as wood, dry grass, charcoal from inlet to the fire wall, the brooding house will get warm through fire wall transmitting heat and the room temperature can reach 36 ºC, check the fire wall and make fire before day old chicks get in to make the room get ideal temperature and without smoke from fire wall. In this experiment, the chicks house is 7 m long and 4 m width, while the fire wall was 3.6 m length, 0.8 m width 1.5 m height and the chimney is 2.5 m height, internal diameter is 20 cm, the outside inlet size is 40cm width and 55 cm height. The site is located at the middle of the back wall. The brooding house maintained a temperature range of 34-36 °C during the days of brooding. The indication is that Fire wall system could be a good temperature moderating device in poultry brooding houses. Test using broiler chicks showed average body weight of 320 grams, and o% mortality rate at the end of session of three weeks.