Farm animals need electric fans, too

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna, Philippines – Farm animals are also affected by the searing heat of summer.

Dr. Hospicio Timbol, former president of the Philippine Veterinary Medical Association (PVMA), said farm animals, particularly chicken, suffer from excessive heat stress during hot months.

“It is not uncommon to see poultry birds literally dropping dead because of the soaring heat,” Timbol said, adding that chickens have no sweat glands to help cool them off during the hot season.

To cope with the situation, some poultry farms provide “amenities” to their fowls, such as electric fans and sufficient drinking water, he added.

There are other measures adopted by poultry raisers to avoid big losses caused by the summer heat, according to the Los Baños-based Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD).

Some big poultry raisers employ the so-called “tunnel ventilation,” where cold air is generated and circulated within the enclosure for the convenience of the birds.

Another is a mist spray to hydrate and help cool the hot atmosphere.

Chickens are highly susceptible to thermal stress, with panting as the most obvious sign.

If not attended to, the birds would just convulse and drop dead, a Los Baños scientist said.

If the temperature shoots up past the optimum 18 to 24 degrees Celsius – it has lately been above 35 degrees in Manila and Tuguegarao City, Cagayan – chickens respond with behavioral changes that leave negative effects in growth rate, egg production, egg shell quality and size, food intake and conversion, and hatchability rate.

“Severe panting takes a lot of energy and ultimately results in death because of exhaustion,” according to “Heat Stress,” a report of the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Animal Industry (DA-BAI), DA-Livestock Development Council (LDC), and the Israel Embassy in Makati City.

Under such situation, good management practices should be adopted to counter heat stress among chicken.

Such practices include provision of enough drinking water, avoidance of overcrowding in poultry houses, and not allowing manure below the poultry house to build up.

It was recommended that trees should be planted near the poultry house to reduce the radiated head-lead affecting birds in the poultry house.