Livestock Building Environment Improvements and Their Influence on the Animal’s Welfare

A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Farm Animal Production".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 January 2025 | Viewed by 860

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Rural Building, Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Land Surveying, University of Agriculture in Krakow, al. Mickiewicza 24/28, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
Interests: microclimate of livestock buildings; dairy cattle; animal welfare; ventilation in livestock buildings; environmental stressors; rural building
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Rural Building, Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Land Surveying, University of Agriculture in Krakow, al. Mickiewicza 24/28, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
Interests: biometeorology; climate change; environmental stressors; animal production; dairy; constructions law; ventilation; rural building; welfare; architecture

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Guest Editor
Biometeorology Study Group (GEBIOMET), Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR), Dois Vizinhos Campus, Estrada para Boa Esperança, km 04, Comunidade São Cristóvão, Dois Vizinhos 85660-000, Brazil
Interests: animal welfare; agrometeorology; biometeorology; thermal environment; livestock production
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Due to rapid climate change and rising energy costs, livestock production requires continuous improvement. From a technical point of view, this applies to the construction of, technical solutions for and equipment of livestock buildings. The introduction of new solutions serves to optimize and reduce the costs of the production process, which is not always reflected in the improvement of environmental conditions and, consequently, in the improvement of animal welfare. Therefore, determining the impact of environmental stressors on livestock that emerge from the implementation of new solutions and techniques is important for ensuring the optimal living conditions for animals.

This Special Issue focuses on analyzing the impact of technical solutions that can or, in fact, do cause environmental stress in animal. In particular, environmental issues include noise, lighting, air pollution and thermal stress.

This Special Issue will feature interdisciplinary research from the disciplines of environmental engineering, agriculture, animal science and veterinary science.

Any type of article, including original research, opinion pieces and reviews, is welcome.

Prof. Dr. Sabina Angrecka
Prof. Dr. Piotr Herbut
Prof. Dr. Frederico Márcio Corrêa Vieira
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • livestock building
  • environment
  • welfare
  • noise
  • thermal stress
  • climate change
  • air pollution
  • ventilation
  • forecasting

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

27 pages, 5661 KiB  
Article
Effects on the Indoor Environment in a Stable for Horses in Winter: A Case Study
by Pavel Kic, Marie Wohlmuthová and Lucie Starostová
Agriculture 2024, 14(8), 1287; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture14081287 - 4 Aug 2024
Viewed by 581
Abstract
The aim of this article is to show the most significant factors influencing the indoor environment in winter considering the operating conditions of an older stable modified for housing 12 horses and an indoor riding arena for teaching and sports purposes. This research [...] Read more.
The aim of this article is to show the most significant factors influencing the indoor environment in winter considering the operating conditions of an older stable modified for housing 12 horses and an indoor riding arena for teaching and sports purposes. This research focused on assessing the influences affecting the internal environment from the point of view of the construction of the building and ventilation control in the operating conditions of working and non-working days. The analysis of the results showed that the massive masonry structure has sufficient thermal insulation and accumulation, which was manifested by good temperature stability inside the stable of 7.2 ± 1.7 °C when the outside air temperature was −4.80 ± 1.5 °C. At low outdoor air temperatures of −6.44 ± 0.4 °C, the following conditions were found: a higher relative air humidity (76.0 ± 5.3%), a high CO2 concentration 2317.1 ± 931.7 ppm, and a high airborne dust concentration PM10 = 231.94 ± 19.13 μg·m−3 and PM2.5 = 160.13 ± 6.28 μg·m−3. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the solution and function of the stable ventilation. The small size of the windows and their uneven distribution (average daylight factor ei from 0.313 ± 0.154 to 0.835 ± 0.309) caused insufficient daylight in some individual boxes. Full article
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