Poultry Environmental Controller: How to Specify One

To specify a poultry environmental controller, define the house’s control zones first, then set sensor positions, ventilation stages, alarm outputs and failover behavior for each zone. Write each as a testable requirement in the tender, and add a witnessed acceptance test. Do not specify by brand or model alone.

“Environmental controller” means something narrower in a poultry house

The search term is shared with building HVAC, cold storage and industrial process control. This guide covers only the controller that runs a poultry house: it reads temperature, humidity and pressure inside the house, then drives fans, air inlets, cooling and heating to keep the birds inside the range the breeder’s management guide sets for that strain and age.
Compared with general-purpose HVAC or industrial controllers, a poultry controller has to hold setpoints that change as the flock ages, run ventilation in stages, and keep working through a failed sensor or a power dip. Birds cannot be moved out while someone troubleshoots. A controller quoted from an HVAC catalogue needs to be checked against each of those three points before it goes into a bid.

Five inputs to collect before writing any spec

• Hen type and head count per house: layer, broiler, breeder or meat duck
• House type: enclosed cage house, floor (litter) house or steel-structure house
• For cage houses, tier count and total stack height
• Grid quality: how often power drops, and whether a generator with automatic transfer exists
• Who operates the system: interface language, training time, and whether remote access is allowed under your project’s data rules

How to specify it, step by step

Each step ends with a check you can run at commissioning.

1. Divide the house into control zones

A zone is a group of fans, inlets and sensors that respond to the same readings. A short single-span broiler house can run as one zone. A long house, or one where part of the flock is at a different age, needs more than one.Cage houses add a vertical dimension. The Gaiola automática tipo H para bateria de postura in Mugong’s data comes in 3, 4, 5, 3+3 and 4+4 tier layouts with total height from 2,330 to 6,580 mm. A stack at the tall end can show a different air temperature at its top and bottom tiers, so one sensor at one height describes one tier only.
Check: a one-page drawing listing every zone with its fans, inlets and sensors. Ask each bidder to return it marked up.

2. Put sensors where the birds are, not where the cable is short

Specify temperature and humidity sensors at bird level in every zone, and at more than one height in multi-tier cages. Add a static pressure sensor inside the house and an outdoor temperature and humidity sensor that sits in shade, away from exhaust air. Where air quality is in the tender, name ammonia or CO2 sensors explicitly.
Keep sensors clear of air inlets, heaters, wet areas, direct sun and fan discharge. A sensor beside a heater reports on the heater. Have the bidder submit the datasheet for every sensor type, and take the accepted tolerance from that datasheet instead of writing your own number into the tender.
Check: at commissioning, compare each sensor against a reference instrument and record the offset per sensor.

3. Define the ventilation stages in a table

Stage names differ between suppliers, so require the tender response to list every stage the controller runs, with its trigger and outputs. A typical set looks like this:

Setpoints belong to the breeder’s management guide for the strain, entered by the operator as an editable schedule by bird age. A controller with fixed factory curves that cannot be edited fails this step. In the tender, cite FAO poultry production guidance and the applicable national or EU animal-welfare cage standard by name, and check the current edition before quoting either.
Check: run the controller through every stage with substituted sensor values (a temporary override or the controller’s test function) and record which outputs switch.

4. What should win when temperature and humidity disagree?

A cold, damp house is the classic conflict. Ventilation removes moisture but cools the house, and the heater then works against the fans. Write the priority order into the specification: the minimum air exchange program is never overridden by the heating call, and heating and evaporative cooling are interlocked so they cannot run together.
Check: force a cold-and-humid reading and a hot-and-humid reading in turn, then watch which outputs the controller chooses.

5. Alarms: list them, route them, time them

Six alarms cover the situations that harm birds fastest:

• Alta temperatura
• Low temperature
• Sensor fault
• Fan failure, read from motor status feedback rather than inferred
• Power loss
• Loss of communication between controller and any remote unit

For each one, state the trigger condition, the local output (siren, light), the remote notification (named phone numbers, and who acknowledges), and the escalation if nobody acknowledges.
Check: trigger every alarm during acceptance and record the time from event to phone notification. Set the maximum accepted delay in the tender.

6. Specify failover for sensors, the controller and the power supply

Sensor failure. The controller should flag the failed sensor and fall back to the remaining sensors in the zone or to a default program. The edge case is the sensor that sticks: it keeps sending its last value and looks healthy. Ask for flat-line and out-of-range detection by name.
Controller failure. Require a manual override for fans and inlets that works without the controller’s logic, ideally a hardwired bypass with an independent thermostat.
Power failure. Ask what the house does in the first minutes without power: which openings, if any, open by gravity or spring, and how quickly the generator takes the fan load. Require that the controller resumes its last state after power returns, not a factory default.
Check: pull one sensor connector, switch the controller off, and cut mains power with the generator both on and off. Log what each event does.

7. Set data, language and support terms

Specify the log export format (CSV or equivalent), the time-stamp standard, and how long the controller stores data on board. State the interface language and units, the number of training days for operators, a spare sensor set, and separate warranty terms for sensors and controller. For development-funded and government projects, the export requirement is what lets you produce audit records later.
Check: export one week of test data and open it on the buyer’s own computer.

8. Put the acceptance test in the contract

Copy the checks from steps 1 to 7 into one witnessed test, run in the finished house under real fan load, and tie a payment milestone to a signed pass record. The size of the held-back share is a commercial decision for your contracts team.

Where specifications go wrong

Specifying by brand or model name alone feels safe and tests nothing. If a bidder offers an equivalent, you have no performance criteria to compare it against.
A controller cannot rescue a house whose fans are undersized or whose walls leak. Specify the controller together with the ventilation design, not as a separate purchase, or the first hot week will be blamed on the wrong component.
Accepting a bench demonstration instead of an in-house test is the third trap. A controller that behaves on a table can still trip a fan when the whole house is drawing power.

Integrated or standalone controller: which fits your project?

The integrated route costs you flexibility: when the supplier’s controller line changes, you follow it. The standalone route costs you a single point of responsibility, which matters most when a fault could be either the fan or the controller. Mugong describes its scope as turnkey, from equipment design through manufacturing, installation, training and after-sales. Whether the controller sits inside that scope on a given project is confirmed in the quotation.

What Mugong’s published data says about house climate control

The catalog line that covers this topic is Farm Support & Auxiliary Systems. The published data for that line names no controller model, sensor list or per-model certificate. The climate-related details that are published sit in the house and cage products:

Certifications are listed at company level: ISO 9001:2015, CE and SGS. No per-model certificate numbers are published, and none for a controller. CE marking is the European conformity marking, so for an EU-bound project ask in writing for the controller’s own declaration of conformity instead of relying on the company-level listing. Request the controller make, model, sensor list and alarm outputs in writing with the quotation.

Perguntas frequentes

Is a poultry environmental controller the same as an HVAC controller?

No. A poultry controller runs staged ventilation, changes setpoints with bird age, and has to keep operating through sensor or power faults. A general HVAC or industrial controller may do none of that unless it is configured for it, so check each point against the datasheet.

 How many sensors does a house need?

There is no fixed number. Count them from the zone drawing: at least one temperature and humidity point at bird level per zone, more heights in multi-tier cages, plus static pressure and outdoor sensors. Put the count in the tender so bids are comparable.

Does the controller need its own CE documentation for an EU project?

Ask for it. Mugong’s published data lists ISO 9001:2015, CE and SGS at company level and no per-model certificates, so request the controller’s declaration of conformity in writing with the quotation.

 Which alarm matters most?

High temperature and power loss put birds at risk fastest, and fan failure is the most common cause of the first. Specify all six alarms in step 5 and test each one.

Can I buy the controller separately from the cage system?

Yes, but responsibility for interface faults then sits with you or your integrator. The comparison table above sets out what you gain and lose either way.