TUCKER, Ga. — U.S. Poultry & Egg Association and the USPOULTRY Foundation have announced the completion of a funded research project at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C., in which researchers developed a practical solar heater for poultry houses.
The research was made possible in part by an endowing Foundation gift from Elton and Claire Maddox and is part of the association’s comprehensive research program encompassing all phases of poultry and egg production and processing.
Dr. Sanjay Shah and colleagues at North Carolina State University recently completed the research project in which they developed and tested a low-cost solar heater for use in poultry houses. The solar collector is made from black plastic and heated by the sun.
Air coming into the poultry house is heated as it passes through the solar collector, supplementing heat provided by propane heaters, thus reducing the potential propane usage. The study shows that use of the solar heater is economically and technically feasible for use in poultry houses.
