Knowing how much to ventilate during cold weather is crucial to a poultry producer’s bottom line. Ventilating too little can lead to poor air/litter quality, resulting in bird health and performance issues. Ventilating too much can lead to drafty, dusty conditions and high heating costs. To best determine minimum ventilation fan runtime, farm managers should ideally monitor the three most important air quality variables: carbon dioxide, ammonia and relative humidity. Carbon dioxide is produced by both the birds and the house’s heating system. High carbon dioxide concentrations can lead to lethargic chicks and reduced weight gains and therefore should be kept below 5,000 ppm (ideally below 3,500 ppm). High ammonia concentrations can lead to poor feed conversions, reduced weight gains, and increased susceptibility to disease. In order to maximize bird performance and health, ammonia concentrations must be kept below 30 ppm (ideally below than 20 ppm) throughout the flock. Last but not least, relative humidity should be kept between 50 and 70%. Lower relative humidities will tend to result in a dusty house and high heating costs while higher relative humidities can lead to wet litter and high ammonia concentrations. Having meters to measure carbon dioxide, ammonia and relative humidity allows farm managers to set their minimum ventilation fans so they ventilate just enough to maintain proper air quality without over ventilating and driving up heating costs.

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