The facilities, equipment, and materials that compose the poultry house and provide the inputs for poultry growth play a key role in their welfare. To improve its production parameters and at the same time guarantee the welfare of poultry, poultry farming in the world has made remarkable improvements in recent decades.

Giordano Poultry Plast is an Italian company with a range of poultry solutions aimed at improving production efficiency. These solutions also aim to ensure that poultry farmers can guarantee the welfare of the birds using sustainable, resistant, and highly hygienic materials.

Poultry welfare: the five freedoms

The five freedoms of animal welfare were promoted in the 1960s. These are now applied in poultry farming to ensure quality and the highest ethical standards in production systems.

Among these freedoms is the recommendation that poultry should be free from hunger, thirst, and malnutrition. Therefore, in recent decades, poultry nutrition has developed feeds that meet the nutritional needs of poultry and optimize their development and growth.

On the other hand, Giordano Poultry Plast, through its subsidiary Valery Technologies, has succeeded in creating feeders and drinkers with cutting-edge technology. These products facilitate the feeding and watering of poultry because they are efficient, manual, or automatic, and environmentally friendly systems.

Secondly, it is recognized that poultry must remain free from fear and distress. It is also important to ensure that the birds do not suffer from physical or thermal discomfort.

As a result, poultry farmers around the world have developed innovative systems to create controlled environments in poultry houses that keep poultry safe and comfortable. In addition, ventilation, temperature, and humidity control systems are used to ensure the thermal comfort of the poultry, and bedding and slats are selected according to the needs of the birds.

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On the other hand, another of the five animal freedoms promotes freedom from pain, injury, and disease in poultry.

To prevent these conditions, the poultry industry has implemented successful and robust vaccination and deworming programs for various infections caused by pathogenic microorganisms. These prophylactic measures are complemented by improvements in management, facilities, and choice of materials in poultry houses to ensure maximum hygiene and efficiency.

In addition, for decades, research into the prevention and treatment of metabolic, nutritional, genetic, endocrine, behavioral, and environmental diseases have been carried out in veterinary medicine and zootechnics. As a result, we are now able to achieve engineered systems in which morbidity and mortality are reduced to a minimum.

Finally, one of the five freedoms that poultry farming guarantees to poultry is the freedom to express their natural behaviors. Poultry is social animals that communicate through visual and physical signals and vocalizations. Therefore, the poultry house must provide sufficient space for the poultry to freely express these behaviors.

Poultry facilities: What should they look like?

The poultry industry has made great strides in equipment, facilities, and house design in recent decades. These improvements have allowed the industry to become one of the strongest and fastest-growing industries in the world.

All details within a poultry system are important as they play a role in the production chain. The choice of equipment, facilities, and materials are critical to the success and sustainability of a production system.

On the other hand, each stage of poultry production must have the necessary equipment and facilities to meet the needs of the groups circulating in the system. The needs of chicks are specific to this group and different from those of breeders, layers, and broilers.

The requirements for each population group are related to the type of slats used and its materials, the number and type of feeders and drinkers (manual or automatic), temperature and humidity conditions, type of feed, and vaccination cycles, among others.

The poultry farmer must take these differences into account to provide the birds with the best conditions for maximum performance and high quality and health standards. These conditions, in turn, allow for animal welfare and increased economic returns.

The poultry house slats: an essential element

The slats in the poultry house are an essential element because it is where the poultry spends most or all their time. For this reason, they must be characterized by the best hygiene, comfort, ease of installation and use, resistance, and durability.

Giordano Poultry Plast’s farm slats line offers the INOVA slats for webbed-footed poultry and Grinta-T for broilers. These products are specifically designed with poultry leg anatomy and behavior in mind.

Both INOVA and GRINTA-T slats are made of highly durable, hygienic, comfortable, and safe plastic. The use of this type of slats reduces maintenance costs and makes it easy to assemble and disassemble.

Poultry Feeding Equipment: A Key Element in Poultry Welfare

Highly efficient and hygienic feeding equipment contributes to the welfare of poultry. These solutions used on the poultry farm reduce the likelihood of infections, gastrointestinal problems, stress, and malnutrition.

Polyfeeder is an automatic feeder designed to meet the feeding needs of ducks and turkeys. This efficient solution for poultry farming is made up of modular parts that allow for easy assembly and disassembly of the product. In addition, the versatility of the Polyfeeder allows it to adapt to each stage of poultry production throughout the entire rearing process.

Giordano Poultry Plast is an innovative company that constantly revises and adapts its products to the needs of the poultry sector. For this reason, the Polyfeeder has been redesigned in studies that have made it possible to update this product with a new version that is more hygienic, more efficient, and less costly.

The new Polyfeeder has eliminated batch feed slots to facilitate washing and disinfection. In addition, the opening and closing options have been modified to reduce operator handling time and lower production costs.

Efficient feeding contributes to the welfare of poultry, as nutrition is closely linked to good health. For this reason, Polyfeeder has two versions that focus on two high-production poultry sectors. The first version specializes in day-old and adult chicks; the second version in turkeys and webbed-footed poultry.

Day Old Chick Transport Welfare

Day-old chicks are an important group of poultry in the industry. Due to their early life stage, these poultry are susceptible to changes in the environment, temperature, humidity, and hygiene within the facility. Therefore, the poultry producer must consider an efficient solution for the care and transport of day-old chicks.

The Chick Box 2 Compartments is an innovative product from Giordano Poultry Plast. This box allows them to maintain the correct airflow, ideal air temperature, and oxygenation necessary to keep this poultry comfortable.

These environmental conditions are critical for the healthy and full development of the chicks. For this reason, the Chick Box 2 Compartments ensure the welfare of this group of poultry.

This GPP product has been continuously researched and improved, and the new version offers 30% more ventilation for the chicks. The product is made of UV-stabilized polyethylene and is easy to clean, hygienic, and easy to assemble.

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Conclusions

Animal welfare in poultry farming is a globally accepted concept and the industry is constantly working to improve it. Five freedoms guide poultry farmers in what basic needs they should provide for the welfare of the poultry.

These freedoms and conditions relate to various elements within the poultry farm. These include the facilities available to house the poultry, which should provide ideal conditions of temperature, humidity, space, and light. In addition, the choice of slats is a critical point, since the poultry remains on it throughout their lives, so it must be comfortable, durable, and simple.

Giordano Poultry Plast is an Italian company that offers efficient solutions for this type of installation. They offer INOVA and Grinta-T slats, specially designed for poultry and their anatomical needs.

In addition, GPP offers innovative equipment such as Polyfeeder for poultry feeding, which is characterized by their efficiency, durability, and improved production parameters.

Finally, transport is a key element in the various production phases, especially for day-old chicks. For this reason, the Italian company offers its Chick Box 2 Compartments designed for day-old chicks. It provides excellent ventilation, oxygenation, and thermal comfort.