Impactos das variações climáticas sobre o ambiente térmico de aviários climatizados de frangos de corte

Abstract

Due to the importance of the poultry sector for the national economy, it is important to study the factors that can optimize chicken perfor mance in the coming decades. Climate, as one of the factors that most interfere with poultry production, fits in this context and, as such, must be analyzed, considering the propensity of its alteration for the near future. In this sense, and considering that the main problem for broiler breeding comes from heat stress, was objectified with the present work to study the impact of climate changes on broiler breeding in the municipality of Uberaba, State of Minas Gerais aiming to subsidize studies of thermal discomfort mitigation, by heat inside closed and air conditioned poultry farms for broiler breeding. The thermal environment inside air -conditioned poultry farms was predicted by means of a model based on equations of heat and mass transfers. The simulated poultry farms had constructive characteristics formed by the combination of three roofing (galvanized, fiber cement and sandwich), two side closures (curtains and masonry of hollow brick coated by plaster ) and three evaporative cooling systems (nebulization, porous plates and the combination of the two ). Average meteorological data of the municipality of Uberaba, located in the State of Minas Gerais, were used as input data for simulations referring to the current and future scenario (2100), of the thermal environment inside wind tunnel type poultry farms, aiming the study possible mitigations of unwanted thermal conditions. The simulations performed according to the average air temperature data for the current scenario, indicate that aviaries equipped with evaporative cooling by porous wetting plates or with this system associated with nebulization were able to provide thermal comfort conditions for broiler chickens. However, for the future scenario, there was a reduction of the percentage of aviaries the in comfort conditions. Simulations considering maximum air temperature indicate the inability of simulated poultry farms to provide comfort conditions for birds, regardless of their configuration or scenario (current or future).