Abstract:
The aerial environment of housed livestock has a significant impact on the behaviour and growth of livestock. Aerial pollutant emissions from livestock production, especially ammonia, form a large part of the total UK emission to the environment. Improvements in the management of livestock and the design of housing systems will have to embrace effects on both the production parameters as well as improvements in the aerial environment to satisfy increasing demands by legislation to improve animal welfare standards and reduce aerial pollutant emissions for livestock production systems. At the same time increased demands are put on livestock managers, who have to satisfy a range of often conflicting criteria, varying from feed strategy through to welfare issues. To aid livestock managers, integrated management systems are being developed to control simultaneously more than one, and ideally all, interrelated processes involved in livestock production. Current developments in integrated management systems show that growth parameters can be effectively controlled and do have a significant impact on pollutant emissions in broiler production.