Climate Change Impact on Immune
Status and Productivity of Poultry
as Well as the Quality of Meat and Egg
Products
Ahmed Soliman and Assem Mohamed Safwat
Abstract The potential impacts of climate change on poultry may include changes
in production, reproduction, quality of their products (meat or eggs) and diseases.
It is noted that high temperature during the summer season or in regions with hot
weather and high relative humidity prevent broiler chicks and laying hens to express
their high genotypes, especially when they are raised in an open production system.
Current poultry production systems comprise large numbers of birds being housed
together making them more susceptible to heat stress. Heat stress not only causes
inconvenience and high mortality rate for birds, but results also in lower or lost
production which therefore reduces the profitability. Both of production performance
and feed conversion ratio are affected by heat stress conditions, which affect the
production rate. Other effects associated with heat stress include immunity reduction
and weak immune response to vaccines that decrease the resistance of birds to many
infectious diseases. In laying hens the production is markedly decrease and does not
reach to the peak with declining egg quality (e.g. thin and breakable eggshell) in
addition to lower egg weight with small size. This chapter discusses some of the key
principles (nutritional or managerial practices) that could be used in order to alleviate
the adverse effects resulting from heat stress.
Keywords Climate change · Heat stress · Poultry production · Feeding strategies
1 Introduction
In the current decades, many countries of the world (mainly in tropical and subtropical regions) are affected by climate change and global worming which resulted
from emitting greenhouse gases (GHG) such as water vapor (H 2 O), Carbon dioxide
(CO 2 ), Methane (CH 4 ) and Nitrous oxide (N 2 O). The negative effects of increased
A. Soliman (B) · A. M. Safwat
Department of Poultry Production, Faculty of Agriculture (El-Shatby), Alexandria University,
Alexandria, Egypt
e-mail: ahmed_soliman919@yahoo.com
A. M. Safwat
e-mail: assemsafwat2004@yahoo.com
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
E.-S. E. Omran and A. M. Negm (eds.), Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture and Food
Security in Egypt, Springer Water, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41629-4_20
481
Status and Productivity of Poultry
as Well as the Quality of Meat and Egg
Products
Ahmed Soliman and Assem Mohamed Safwat
Abstract The potential impacts of climate change on poultry may include changes
in production, reproduction, quality of their products (meat or eggs) and diseases.
It is noted that high temperature during the summer season or in regions with hot
weather and high relative humidity prevent broiler chicks and laying hens to express
their high genotypes, especially when they are raised in an open production system.
Current poultry production systems comprise large numbers of birds being housed
together making them more susceptible to heat stress. Heat stress not only causes
inconvenience and high mortality rate for birds, but results also in lower or lost
production which therefore reduces the profitability. Both of production performance
and feed conversion ratio are affected by heat stress conditions, which affect the
production rate. Other effects associated with heat stress include immunity reduction
and weak immune response to vaccines that decrease the resistance of birds to many
infectious diseases. In laying hens the production is markedly decrease and does not
reach to the peak with declining egg quality (e.g. thin and breakable eggshell) in
addition to lower egg weight with small size. This chapter discusses some of the key
principles (nutritional or managerial practices) that could be used in order to alleviate
the adverse effects resulting from heat stress.
Keywords Climate change · Heat stress · Poultry production · Feeding strategies
1 Introduction
In the current decades, many countries of the world (mainly in tropical and subtropical regions) are affected by climate change and global worming which resulted
from emitting greenhouse gases (GHG) such as water vapor (H 2 O), Carbon dioxide
(CO 2 ), Methane (CH 4 ) and Nitrous oxide (N 2 O). The negative effects of increased
A. Soliman (B) · A. M. Safwat
Department of Poultry Production, Faculty of Agriculture (El-Shatby), Alexandria University,
Alexandria, Egypt
e-mail: ahmed_soliman919@yahoo.com
A. M. Safwat
e-mail: assemsafwat2004@yahoo.com
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
E.-S. E. Omran and A. M. Negm (eds.), Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture and Food
Security in Egypt, Springer Water, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41629-4_20
481