Trombe Wall System for Poultry Brooding

Abstract

Performance evaluation of a Trombe wall powered poultry house for brooding day-old chicks was undertaken. The poultry house consists of a Trombe wall for solar energy collection and storage, a brooding room having a floor area measuring 6.6m². The house was tested experimentally with poultry day-old chicks under University of Nigeria, Nsukka, weather, over the ambient environmental temperature range of 18-37^oC and daily global irradiance of 5.7-904W/m² for a period of 5 years. The measured Trombe outer wall temperature was within the range of 22-60^oC. The brooding house maintained a temperature range of 28-35^oC during the period of the experimental investigation. The indication is that Trombe wall system could be a good temperature moderating device in poultry brooding houses. Test using broiler day-old chicks showed average body weight of 586 grams, feed conversion ratio of 1.87 and 3% mortality rate at the end of session of five weeks per batch for the five year experimental study. The system can also find useful application in other animal rearing operations where heat is needed to keep the young animals warm at the early stage of development. One of such applications could be in pig production.