What are the main negative effects of climate change on laying hen production?

Climate change is mainly manifested in climate warming, the increase of extreme weather events, drought, continuous rain, local rainstorm, high temperature and low temperature freezing damage and snow and ice disasters. Climate change is highlighted by two meteorological factors: temperature and humidity. At the same time, temperature and humidity are also two important factors affecting the health and production performance of laying hens. The main negative effects of climate change on laying hen production are as follows.

(1) Effect of high temperature on performance of laying hens. High temperature will cause heat stress of laying hens, reduce their appetite and reduce their feed intake. In the high temperature environment, the egg production of laying hens will obviously decrease, the egg weight will become lighter and the egg shape will become smaller. Under the condition of high temperature, the eggshell becomes thinner, the surface is rough and easy to break, which leads to the increase of egg breaking rate.

(2) The effect of low temperature on the performance of laying hens. Low temperature also affects the production performance of laying hens, but its influence is generally not as serious as high temperature. When the ambient temperature is too low, the feed intake of chickens will increase obviously. When the temperature of the henhouse is lower than 5℃, the feed consumption will increase significantly in order to increase the heat production and resist the cold. At low temperature, it often causes tracheitis, bronchopneumonia and gastrointestinal inflammation; Low temperature and high humidity often cause rheumatism, fibrous tissue inflammation and peripheral neuritis; Hypothermia or freezing can lead to hypothermia, functional decline, central nervous system paralysis or death.

(3) Effect of temperature on the health of laying hens. High temperature stress can easily lead to the decline of animal body resistance and immunity, and make animals suffer from various diseases. Affected by climate warming, laying hens are prone to infectious diseases. With the increase of temperature, pathogenic microorganisms become active, such as mycoplasma, Escherichia coli, avian influenza, Newcastle disease infection and mixed or secondary infection, which increases the incidence and makes prevention and control more difficult, thus seriously affecting the health and production performance of chickens.

(4) Effect of humidity on laying hens. In the case of high humidity, infectious diseases are prone to occur. People often suffer from respiratory diseases under the conditions of low temperature and high humidity. In addition, low humidity is easy to cause pecking addiction of laying hens, which is also one of the important reasons for poor feather growth of laying hens.

(Tong Jianming, Dong Xiaofang)