Heat stress is a leading welfare and mortality risk for farmed poultry, and climate change is making effective thermal management increasingly critical.
Heat stress in poultry causes acute suffering — panting requires significant energy expenditure, body temperature rises dangerously, and birds in extremis lose the capacity to thermoregulate entirely. Mass mortality events in heatwaves represent some of the largest single welfare catastrophes in agriculture. The welfare case for better thermal management is also an economic case: stressed birds eat less, grow slower, and produce fewer eggs. Climate-resilient poultry housing — incorporating evaporative cooling, insulated roofs, increased ventilation, and reduced stocking density during hot periods — represents a tractable, cost-effective investment. Slower-growing breeds, which generate less metabolic heat, provide an additional welfare-positive adaptation strategy.