Do not use asbestos roofing for chicken coops; farmers should take note

In rural areas, some farmers, in order to reduce the cost of raising chickens and keep the chicken coop ventilated, use a roofless design and use asbestos roofing to shield against rain and dew in the morning and at night. This is very unfavorable. Here we will look into why asbestos roofing should not be used for chicken coops.

Many chicken farmers, in order to keep the chicken house ventilated, reduce disease among the flock, or save money, adopt a roofless design and use asbestos roofing to block rain and dew after dark. In fact, this kind of chicken house construction is seriously unreasonable, because the roof is an important insulation facility for the chicken house, and temperature is closely related to the chickens' production performance. When the temperature inside the chicken house is too high, the chickens' appetite decreases, feed intake decreases, metabolic rate decreases, feed conversion rate decreases, and production performance declines; when the temperature inside the chicken house is too low, the energy the chickens use to maintain their needs increases, feed intake increases; feed consumption rises, feed efficiency decreases, and production performance likewise declines. Moreover, under high-temperature or low-temperature environments, the chickens' own immunity decreases, causing the incidence of disease to rise, which leads to a substantial increase in chicken farm production costs such as water, electricity, and medicine costs, resulting in rising production costs and an unfavorable situation of reduced profits or even losses. It can be seen that choosing building materials with good thermal insulation performance to build the roof is very important for maintaining a suitable temperature environment inside the chicken house.

The thermal insulation performance of the roof is related to the thermal resistance value and thickness of the building materials used. The greater the thermal resistance value and the thicker the material, the better the thermal insulation performance. Therefore, it is inappropriate for chicken farmers to use asbestos roofing for roofing. Although asbestos roofing is relatively cheap, the thermal resistance value of this material is only 0.025 sq m·h·°C/4.184KJ, and its thermal insulation performance is quite poor. In winter, a large amount of heat energy inside the house is released, and the temperature inside the chicken house is easy to drop and difficult to raise, so insulation is poor; in summer, a large amount of solar radiation heat and ground-reflected heat penetrates in, and the temperature inside the chicken house is easy to rise and difficult to drop, so heat insulation is poor. In this way, a harsh microclimate of colder winters and hotter summers will form inside the chicken house. In production, each batch of chickens requires more manpower, materials, and financial resources to improve the microclimate inside the house, which inevitably increases production costs and reduces economic benefits. Therefore, chicken houses with a roofless design should avoid using asbestos roofing.