Housing and environmental interventions to reduce heat stress in poultry: Current advances and future perspectives

Abstract

Heat stress is among the major environmental challenges that threaten poultry production, welfare, and sustainability, especially in tropical and subtropical regions where high temperatures, humidity, and recurrent heat waves are becoming increasingly frequent. Poultry are highly vulnerable to thermal stress because of their limited capacity for heat dissipation, high metabolic heat production, feather coverage, and absence of sweat glands. This integrative review aimed to synthesize the current evidence concerning the use of housing and environmental interventions to mitigate heat stress in poultry production systems. This review focuses on the physiological basis of heat stress and on practical strategies involving ventilation, evaporative cooling, fogging and sprinkling, roof insulation, reflective materials, shading, stocking density adjustment, passive housing design, and precision environmental monitoring. These findings indicate that these interventions can reduce thermal load, improve thermoregulation, support feed intake, enhance productive performance, reduce mortality, and improve animal welfare. However, their effectiveness depends strongly on climatic conditions, housing type, bird category, production scale, water availability, energy cost, and management capacity. Evaporative cooling and sprinkling systems may be highly effective under specific conditions but require careful control of humidity and litter moisture. Passive strategies, such as roof insulation, reflective materials, shading, and adequate building orientation, are especially relevant for reducing radiant heat gain and improving baseline thermal comfort. Precision livestock farming technologies, including sensors, infrared thermography, sound analysis, and automated environmental control, represent promising tools for early heat stress detection and climate-resilient management. Overall, effective mitigation requires integrated, region specific, economically feasible, and sustainable environmental management. Future poultry housing should combine passive design, active cooling, appropriate stocking density, and real-time monitoring to maintain productivity and welfare under warming climate scenarios.