Chuck Sutton, sales manager with Georgia Poultry, was interviewed by The Poultry Site’s Sarah Mikesell at IPPE in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

“These fans are our Air Storm line of fans,” said Sutton. “We offer two lines of fans. Our air storm line is either a fiberglass or our polytype fan. We also have a galvanized fan that is a Windstorm fan.”

The 57-inch fan was originally manufactured for the hog market; however, it was reinforced and is now offered in a fully stainless-steel model for the poultry industry.

“It's been one of our very best sellers in poultry,” said Sutton. “We offer it in stainless steel or galvanized, but for poultry, it’s typically galvanized. It’s a 57-inch butterfly fan.”

Fan features

“Well, I think one of the neatest things about this fan is the poly-butterfly here,” he said. “The internals struts and the butterfly ring are aluminum, and they are corrosive resistant.”

For the galvanized version, the prop, motor mounts and pulley mounts are all galvanized which is a very heavy, thick steel, which won’t corrode as much in a poultry application. All the pulleys, drives and spinner drive units are from a respected sourcing company. The motors are highly efficient.

Minimum ventilation option 

“We took the 57-inch fan, and we put it down into a 36-inch version,” he explained. “In the poultry market, these 36-inch fans are typically used what for what we call minimum ventilation.”

It is typically on a timer application; it has an oversized one horsepower motor that was designed for timer applications. The 36-inch model is a butterfly version with poly fiberglass housing. It is a corrosive-free fan that should last for a long time. It is also quite easy to mount and apply retrofits.

Product benefits to producers

“New housing is one thing, but a lot of the poultry industry has houses that could be 10 to 20 years old, so those fans are older fans,” said Sutton. “They're not going to be as efficient; they will not operate as well as the newer version fans will.“

The older fans in the poultry industry were galvanized fans which corrode over time. Georgia Poultry can now offer fiberglass and poly fans that are more cost effective than the metal versions.

“At the end of the day, I feel like our producers can now get a fan that they can afford that is just as cheap or cheaper than a galvanized version,” he said. “The air flows are going to be more, the efficiencies are going to be more, and it allows them to upgrade their farms.”

For more information on the fan products offered by Georgia Poultry, please visit: https://www.hogslat.com/.