Abstract
ABSTRACT Broiler chickens are classified as homoeothermic animals and require a production environment within well-defined thermal comfort intervals. Therefore, the development of algorithms (mathematical models) to control the environment that can be embedded in microcontrollers becomes necessary. Hence, this work aimed to develop a fuzzy model for predicting the productive performance of broiler chickens as a function of the thermal environment during the various breeding phases. The Mamdani inference and defuzzification methods were used, by means of the gravity center, to develop the fuzzy model. Two hundred and forty-three rules with weighting factors of 1.0 each were elaborated. Three commercial warehouses (conventional system, wind tunnel with negative pressure and dark house) were evaluated for testing of the model. We recorded the thermal environment (dry bulb temperature - tdb and relative humidity - RH) and productivity data (feed intake - FI, weight gain - WG, feed conversion - FC and productive efficiency index - PEI) over six lots in each aviary. The resulting fuzzy model was capable of forecasting FI, WG, FC, and PEI, with standard deviations and mean percentage errors of 4.16 g and 5.05%, 146.53 g and 8.04%, 0.06 g g−1 and 4.96%, and 24.51 g and 12.29%, respectively.
Highlights
The development of the Brazilian poultry industry has been supported by the adoption of new methodologies and technologies that seek the optimization of animal production, allowing the improvement of sector competitiveness, faced with the new demands of the consumer market.The production environment is one of the major causes of losses in animal production on a commercial scale
Broiler chickens are classified as homoeothermic animals, i.e., they are capable of maintaining their body temperature within relatively narrow limits by means of physiological and behavioral mechanisms
This study aimed to develop a fuzzy model to forecast the productive performance of broiler chickens raised in different commercial production systems
Summary
The production environment is one of the major causes of losses in animal production on a commercial scale. For animals to express their genetic potential, among other requirements, it is necessary to provide adequate food and an aseptic and thermally adjusted environment that meets the needs of the chicken (Yanagi Junior et al, 2011; Abreu et al, 2012; Almeida & Passini, 2013; Campos et al, 2013b; Nascimento et al, 2014; Tinôco et al, 2014). Broiler chickens are classified as homoeothermic animals, i.e., they are capable of maintaining their body temperature within relatively narrow limits by means of physiological and behavioral mechanisms. When the thermal environment exceeds the limits of comfort, the Universidade Federal de Lavras/ Lavras - MG, Brasil. Received in: 7-11-2018 Accepted in: 10-29-2018 energy used for meat production is spent in thermoregulatory processes, leading to production losses (Baracho et al, 2013; Boiago et al, 2013; Lara & Rostagno, 2013; Castro, 2014; Santos et al, 2014)
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