By Hannah Cargill, contract production manager, Avara Foods
The last couple of weeks have involved a lot of thinking about heat. And catching. And humidity. And misters. Quite frankly, I’m starting to feel like I need a degree in meteorology.
For years, we’ve talked about preparing for hot weather, but the reality is that truly prolonged periods of extreme heat have been relatively few and far between. I remember the rush to get misting systems installed after the heatwave in 2022. Everyone suddenly wanted misters, and quite rightly. But since then, we haven’t really had to put them through their paces for days on end.
This summer is different. The daytime temperatures concern me, but so do the nights. When the temperature barely drops, the birds don’t get precious overnight respite. And suddenly, everything we thought we knew about managing heat becomes more complicated.
Misting can be incredibly useful, but given the humidity we have also experienced, the felt temperature for our birds is much higher.
If we’re looking at a future where summers could regularly see temperatures pushing towards 38°C for prolonged periods, is misting alone really going to cut it? Cooling pads have the potential to remove considerably more heat from incoming air, 8, 10 or even 12 degrees, compared with the much smaller reduction we might achieve through misting (and with less added humidity). That said, many of my growers have found that misters can also be used for increasing humidity early in the crop, meaning they are more than just a temperature control tool.
It’s time we stop thinking of this as preparing for the occasional heatwave and start thinking about designing farms for the summers we are likely to have.
And finally… Big Chicken landed on Netflix in early August.
I could write an entire column about the misinformation. Unfortunately, I suspect our Head of Communications might have a view on that. Fair enough. I’ll simply echo what Richard Griffiths has said: people in Britain like eating chicken. And I don’t think a poorly researched, over-dramatised Netflix special is going to change that. Especially when the reality is that our industry produces an affordable, nutritious, high-welfare source of protein that millions of people choose to eat every week.