Thermal environment, ammonia concentrations, and ammonia emissions of aviary houses with white laying hens

Maintaining comfortable thermal environments and good indoor air quality is essential to ensuring optimal production performance, welfare, and health of animals. Alternative laying-hen housing systems are being adopted by some egg producers in the U.S. However, information on indoor thermal and aerial environments of such alternative housing systems is meager. This article reports a one-year monitoring of thermal conditions (air temperature and relative humidity or RH) and ammonia (NH₃) concentrations and emissions of four aviary laying-hen houses (same dimensions, manure belt plus litter floor systems, 50,000-hen capacity each) at a commercial farm in the Midwest U.S. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations at the air inlet and near the exhaust fans were measured and used, along with literature values of the metabolic rates of the hens, to estimate building ventilation rate (VR). The results show that indoor temperature, RH, CO₂ concentration, NH ₃ concentration, and VR of the four houses (mean ±standard deviation) were 23.4°C ±0.3°C, 64% ±3%, 1520 ±87 ppm, 5.2 ±0.4 ppm, and 4.5 ±0.6 m3 h^-1 hen ^-1, respectively. The highest daily mean NH₃ concentration was 13 ppm (and 20 ppm within the day) in winter. The NH₃ emission rate was 0.14 ±0.01 g d^-1 hen^-1. These values of NH₃ concentrations and emissions were lower than those reported for European aviary houses. The NH₃ emissions of the monitored aviary houses in this study are comparable to those of U.S. manure-belt cage houses, but are much lower than those of U.S. high-rise cage houses. The magnitude of NH₃ emissions observed in this study was consistent with that of similar aviary houses with brown hens in another extended field measurement in the same region.