基于雷达图的蛋鸡舍综合环境舒适度评价及应用

环境是影响蛋鸡健康与生产性能的关键因素,为对蛋鸡舍环境进行综合性的舒适度评价,该研究将除湿热环境之外的空气环境质量也纳入评价指标体系中,采用模糊数学方法,研究了重要环境参数在规模化蛋鸡舍环境舒适度综合评价中的权重,对舍内温度、湿度、CO_2浓度、氨气(NH3)浓度、风速等关键环境参数进行归一化处理,建立了基于多元环境参数的鸡舍综合环境舒适度评价指数(Comprehensive Environmental Index, CEI),并基于LabVIEW软件开发了一套评价系统,可将上述环境参数在雷达图中进行可视化展示,以及对单因素环境参数和环境舒适度进行预警。通过实际使用中鸡舍环境监测数据的分析验证,CEI能够体现舍内整体环境舒适度的变化,对各个时段环境因素间的相互作用做出应答,尤其是温度降低导致空气环境质量影响上升的时段。该研究对于综合评价蛋鸡舍环境条件并进行精准控制,提高环境舒适度,提供了方法支撑。

Comprehensive evaluation of environmental comfort in layer poultry house using radar graph

Housing environment has become a driving factor on hen health, egg quality and efficient production in intensive poultry industry. In large layer poultry housing system, an environmental index is typically used to control air conditions, including air temperature (T), relative humidity (RH) and concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in different season. In hot seasons, thermal environment of laying hen housing is usually assessed using the temperature humidity index (THI) via the online monitored temperature and relative humidity. However, the simple assessment cannot meet the harsh requirement of indoor air quality in a large layer house, as the stocking density increases in recent years. In this paper, a comprehensive environmental index (CEI) was proposed based on the radar map to integrate the impacts of both thermal and air quality factors, in order to systematically assess the environment comfort of the birds. A LabVIEW software system was selected to illustrate the environmental comfort using the fuzzy mathematics. Five key environmental factors, including temperature, RH, air velocity, concentration of CO2 and ammonia (NH3), were used to evaluate the environmental comfort of laying hen housing, where the their weights were normalized in a radar map. In the visualized system, early warning can be delivered when either a single factor or the CEI was over the prescribed value, and thereby a quick action can be taken to adjust the environmental conditions in the layer housing to a comfort level. A field measurement was carried out at a commercial layer breeder farm in Hebei province from January to February, and from July to August, 2019. The experimental results indicated that a good performance of the CEI can be obtained to assess the comprehensive environment in the tested house via monitoring the five environmental indexes. The specific sensors were properly settled in the henhouse. The data of environmental conditions was collected to verify, and then the maximum of five indexes were selected for later use. During the summer daytime, the CEI agreed well with the THI, indicating the positive impacts of thermal environment on the comfort of the birds, while it performed better to integrate the thermal and air quality at night time. In winter, the increase in the weight of CO2 concentration can contribute to the CEI for the comfort in layer housing system. The in situ monitoring data in the actual use demonstrated that the CEI can efficiently represent the change of comprehensive environmental comfort in the chicken house, and respond to the interaction between environmental factors in each period, especially when the air quality has an increasing influence on the comprehensive environmental comfort at night in summer and in winter. The findings can provide a promising method to systematically evaluate the housing environment via the five key factors in laying hen housing, further to improve the birds comfort via precisely controlling the air conditions in intensive poultry production.