Barn Spotlight: The Killough family

Location: Aylmer, Ont.

Sector: Broilers

The business: Larry and Judy Killough own two broiler farms, L&J Killough Farms and Walker Poultry. They’ve been producing chickens since the mid-1990s. 

The need: The Killoughs’ business had been growing exponentially. What’s more, the producers were switching to raised without antibiotics (RWA) production. Thus, they wanted new, modern facilities both to help accommodate future growth and to enable their transition to RWA. That’s why four years ago they started building a series of three new broiler barns, two at the Walker site and the newest one at their L&J site that replaced an aging converted pack barn.

The barn: Working with Weeden Environments, the Killoughs built three identical single-storey, 500 ft. by 65 ft. facilities. They feature modular to tunnel ventilation. Ceiling inlets provide the first stage of minimum ventilation. That’s accompanied by modular sidewall inlets for continued minimum and transitional ventilation. Lastly, tunnel ventilation delivers maximum wind speed and air exchange. Weeden Sprinkler Systems provide further cooling. The sprinklers encourage birds to stand up and provide artificial perspiration for wind chill during hot summer months. 

Each barn includes a Rotem Controller , which the producers have found to be simple to use.

Their tunnel ventilation hit 671 feet per minute during a wind speed test.

All feeding, drinking and 15 54-inch fans per barn were supplied by VAL-CO.