VentPlus for poultry & livestock

Brooding is a trade.
Measure what you traded away

For the first week, the shed has to be warm. So the fans come down, the inlets close, and the brooders run — and brooders are gas burners that produce CO2 of their own, on top of what the birds and the litter produce. Every farmer knows the shed gets close during brooding. Very few know the actual number.

The number matters, because published broiler management guidance puts the CO2 ceiling at around 3,000 ppm at chick level, and sheds routinely pass it in the first week. VentPlus reads the CO2 where the chicks are and switches the minimum-ventilation fan on when it crosses your setting — so you get the heat you need without silently losing early performance.

ISO 9001:2015 Certified Manufacturer Designed & Made in India 1-Year Warranty
R
CO2 Monitor
2400
ppm CO2
Temp
25
°C
Humidity
58
% RH
GOOD
RELAY 1
OFF
Wi-Fi Relay
OFF
VentPlus CO2-1000 · NDIR
Set levels on this unit Fan On: 3,000 ppm Fan Off: 1,600 ppm

CO₂ at chick level · brooding week · minimum ventilation

400ppm Outdoor Ambient air entering through the inlets.
1,500ppm Good A well-ventilated shed even during brooding.
2,500ppm Target ceiling Recommended maximum in most broiler management guides.
3,000ppm Act now The commonly cited upper limit at chick level. Ventilation is inadequate.
4,000ppm Poor Reached routinely in tight sheds on cold nights with brooders running.
5,000ppm Occupational limit The 8-hour human exposure limit — and the top of the VentPlus range.
3,000 ppm

Broiler management guidance from the major breeding companies converges on a CO2 ceiling of about 3,000 ppm measured at chick level, with 2,500 ppm preferred. High brooding CO2 is associated with poorer early growth and higher incidence of ascites. The reason it goes unmanaged is simply that nobody is measuring it — the shed feels warm, which is the thing the farmer is optimising for.

Chick level Where the measurement has to be taken — not at head height
Brooders Gas brooders add CO2 on top of the birds and litter
< 2,500 ppm The target most management guides prefer

The VentPlus solution

Minimum ventilation on a number,
not on a timer and a feeling

Most sheds run minimum ventilation on a timer: so many seconds in so many minutes, set at the start of the cycle and adjusted by feel. A timer does not know that last night was colder, that the litter is wetter, or that the brooders ran longer. CO2 knows all three, because it is the direct product of all of them. VentPlus turns the fan on when the CO2 says the shed needs it and off when it does not.

VentPlus CO₂ monitor and controller connected to a ventilation fan in a poultry shed
VentPlus driving a minimum-ventilation fan in a broiler shed
1

Measure at chick level

Mount the unit where the birds actually are. The reading that matters during brooding is the one at the floor, not the one at the walkway.

2

Set the ceiling for the age

3,000 ppm ON and 1,600 ppm OFF is a conservative brooding-week setting. Both are changed from the front panel in seconds as the birds grow and ventilation increases.

3

Watch it from the house, not the shed

Readings upload over Wi-Fi. On a cold night you can check whether the shed is holding its band from your phone, and see the whole night's curve in the morning.

Real-Time and Historical CO2, Temperature
and Humidity Monitoring From Anywhere

The overnight curve is the useful one. It shows whether minimum ventilation actually held the shed through the coldest hours, or whether CO₂ ran up between fan cycles and came back down only when the day warmed. That is the single most actionable chart in a brooding week, and it downloads to Excel alongside temperature and humidity. Both also have their own graphs on the dashboard, over the same time window as CO2 and fan run-time.

monitor.ventplus.in — VentPlus CO2 Monitor
VentPlus remote dashboard showing CO₂ held below the healthy threshold with the controller versus climbing to unhealthy levels without it

VentPlus remote monitoring website — same interface works on mobile, tablet and desktop

Want to try it yourself? Open a live VentPlus dashboard right now — no login, no signup, straight into a real device's data: live readings, plus CO2, fan, temperature and humidity graphs you can download to Excel.

Open a Live Monitoring Dashboard →

Tap Open a Live Monitoring Dashboard and give it about 2 seconds to log in and load the live demo.

Why CO₂ is the right thing to control on

Temperature tells you whether the birds are warm. Ammonia tells you about the litter. CO₂ is the one measurement that tells you directly whether the shed is getting enough fresh air — because it is produced by the birds, the litter and the brooders together.

3,000ppm
The published ceiling

Broiler management guides from the major breeders converge on approximately 3,000 ppm CO2 maximum at chick level, with 2,500 ppm preferred. Above it, early growth suffers and ascites incidence rises.

Broiler management guidance
400–5,000 ppm
The range that fits

The VentPlus measuring range covers the entire band a poultry shed operates in, from ambient to well past any acceptable ceiling. Accuracy is ±(50 ppm + 5% of reading) from an industrial NDIR sensor after a 10-minute warm-up.

VentPlus Main Unit specification
95% RH
Built for the environment

The unit is rated to 95% relative humidity and 0–50°C — which a shed floor during brooding will genuinely test. The Auto/Off/On switch lets a stockman override it by hand at any time.

VentPlus Main Unit specification
Broiler sheds Brooding houses Layer houses Hatcheries Breeder farms Cattle sheds Piggeries Goat & sheep housing

Warm and stale is a trade. Measure what it cost you.

Common questions

CO₂ in poultry sheds — questions we get from farmers

The broiler management guides published by the major breeding companies converge on a maximum of about 3,000 ppm measured at chick level, with 2,500 ppm preferred, particularly during brooding. Above that, early growth suffers and the incidence of ascites rises. Always measure at bird level — a reading taken at head height in the walkway can be substantially lower than what the chicks are actually breathing.
Three things happen at once. Ventilation is deliberately reduced to hold heat. Gas brooders burn fuel and produce CO2 directly. And the birds and litter produce CO2 continuously. So the source term goes up at exactly the moment the removal rate goes down. This is why the first week is where CO2 problems concentrate.
A timer runs the same cycle regardless of conditions. It does not know the outside temperature dropped, the litter is wetter, the brooders ran longer, or the stocking density changed. CO2 reflects all of those at once, because it is their combined product. Controlling on CO2 means the fan runs when the shed genuinely needs air and stops when it does not — which is also how you avoid over-ventilating and chilling the birds.
No. It measures carbon dioxide, temperature and humidity only. Ammonia needs its own sensor. In practice CO2 and ammonia are correlated in an under-ventilated shed because both accumulate when air exchange is inadequate, so controlling ventilation on CO2 usually improves ammonia as well — but we will not claim it measures something it does not.
The socket on the unit is rated 3A / 700W, which suits smaller minimum-ventilation fans directly. Larger fans are driven through a contactor — the unit switches the contactor coil and the contactor switches the fan. The optional Wi-Fi Relay Unit lets the switched socket sit at the fan end of a long shed while the sensor stays at bird level.
The unit is rated for 0–95% RH and 0–50°C. Mount it at bird level but protected from direct dust blast and water spray, as you would any electronics in a shed. The NDIR sensor is an industrial type that stays stable for years rather than drifting the way cheap chemical sensors do.

Get the CO₂ number in your shed

Tell us your shed dimensions, bird numbers, brooding setup and existing fans. We will recommend where to mount the unit and what thresholds to start the cycle with.

See product models and specs Get in touch

or call +91 99170 80700

Downloads

Product brochure & user manual

Get the full VentPlus CO2 monitor & controller documentation — everything you need to evaluate, buy and install.

Product Brochure 2-page overview · PDF User Manual Setup & installation · PDF