 on Tuesday — and forecasters warn the heat will persist for several more days.){kind=link}
France’s poultry sector is in crisis. Hundreds of thousands of birds have died as a result of the extreme heatwave gripping Western Europe, with temperatures in France reaching an all-time national record of 44.3°C (111.7°F) on Tuesday — and forecasters warn the heat will persist for several more days.
Agricultural bodies in Brittany and Pays de la Loire — France’s two largest poultry-producing regions, which together account for nearly 60% of the national flock — have issued notices warning of “massive” bird deaths.
The scale of mortality has overwhelmed the country’s carcass collection and rendering infrastructure, prompting authorities to consider emergency on-farm burials, subject to environmental and technical checks.
Head of French poultry industry group ANVOL
Nedelec said a definitive death toll is not yet possible to calculate, but estimated losses already number at least several hundred thousand birds. Farmers awaiting collection have been advised to cover carcasses with sawdust or wood shavings to absorb liquids and slow decomposition while
awaiting official disposal guidance.
Implications for farm equipment and ventilation systems
The crisis throws the spotlight on the adequacy of current poultry housing infrastructure and ventilation technology.
A typical French poultry house holds around 20,000 birds, and most farms operate two houses — meaning mortality events at this scale can devastate an entire operation within days.
Industry voices are now questioning whether existing tunnel ventilation, evaporative cooling pads, and fan capacity are sufficient for an era of recurring heat domes.
For agri-machinery professionals, this event underscores demand for retrofittable cooling solutions, temperature monitoring systems, and automated ventilation controls capable of responding to rapid heat spikes.
There is also likely to be renewed interest in precision poultry housing design that factors in extreme heat resilience as a baseline requirement — not an optional upgrade.
Broader agricultural disruption
The heatwave has caused widespread disruption across French agriculture beyond poultry. Cereal farmers have been forced to harvest grain at night to avoid peak heat, while a power outage caused by heat-related grid stress left around 68,000 homes without electricity in western France — the same region where the majority of poultry losses are concentrated.
France is the European Union’s third-largest poultry producer, behind Poland and Spain. The economic and supply chain consequences of this mortality event are expected to take weeks to fully assess.
As Europe enters what climate scientists describe as its second deadly heatwave in two months, the agricultural sector faces an urgent question: are current farming systems and equipment designed for a climate that no longer exists?
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