Keeping your animals or livestock cool and comfortable during the summer is absolutely vital. When ambient temperature and humidity increase, the heat accumulates in the body of cattle faster than it can get rid of. The livestock can be kept cool by designing a cooling system that takes into account the issues related to animal welfare as well as the comfortable climatic conditions for each livestock for improving the cattle's comfort and well-being. Thus, the proper environmental conditions may also lead to maintaining a suitable level of animal production.m3

It doesn’t have to be 45°C for heat stress to affect dairy cows as studies suggest that dairy cows will begin to show symptoms of reduced intake and lose bodyweight at temperatures as low as 26°C, which may in turn affect milk production, as well as reproductive health. The stress due to heat may even affect the performance of cattle in cooler months, and cows do struggle to get rid of complications resulting from rumen acidosis. High-yielding cows are more susceptible to stress due to heat and the level of heat stress endured by the cow will depend on various factors like ambient conditions, air movement, and radiation from the sun. Dairy farmers used to provide shades, fans, and ample fresh drinking water to help cattle beat the heat, but in most cases, these are just not enough.

Pigs are warm-blooded animals that balance their body temperature even in varying climatic conditions. It is achieved using a concept known as thermoregulatory, which balances the heat production and heat loss from the body of pigs. When exposed to high temperatures, pigs maintain their average body by increasing heat dissipation to the environment and decreasing their metabolic heat production.

The objective of the sprinkler system is to wet the cow’s back but also not to allow the moisture to accumulate in free stalls. Evaporative cooling will result when the moisture is evaporated either by a natural or mechanical ventilation mechanism.

The main components include a timer, a thermostat, a solenoid valve, pressure reducing valve, PE pipes & sprinklers. The thermostat should be designed to activate the sprinklers when the average air temperature exceeds 20 to 25°C. A thermostat will govern a solenoid valve located at the beginning of the sprinkler line. The solenoid valve governs the water flow through the pipe.

The cooling sprinkler also systems requires a timer, a 15-minute timer is ideal for application—the sprinkler should be turned ON for 3 minutes, then should be turned OFF for the next 12 minutes and the timer should have a precision of 15 to 30 seconds. If the water flow is limited, it is better to design the system with a sequencing option. If there are multiple sprinkler systems, a 60-minute timer would be ideal for sequencing the individual sprinklers.

The pressure reducer is needed to limit the sprinkler-line pressure at the inlet to 1.4 to 2.8 bar depending on the recommendation of the nozzle manufacturer. This primarily is needed when the water pressure in the distribution pipe exceeds 3 bar. Pressure losses through the distribution pipe should not exceed 0.3 bar. Water usage during summer may vary from 2 to 6 cubic meters per cow depending on the weather conditions and sprinkler system used.

A simple design criterion of wetting rate is 0.03 cubic meters per square meter of wetted surface area per sprinkler on the cycle. The wetted surface area is the area wetted as the sprinkler nozzle oscillates back and forth. Normally, a distance of 6 to 8 m is wetted behind the feed line. One guideline is to use 6 square meters per meter of feeding space. If the feed line is 100 m long, then the wetted area per pen is 600 square meters (100 m X 6 square meters). Therefore, 18 cubic meters (600 square meters × 0.03 cubic meters per square meter) of water is required to meet the design criteria of 0.03 cubic meters per square meter per cycle. The water pipes must be able to deliver 18 cubic meters of water during the selected sprinkler “on” cycle. If the sprinkler’s cycle time is 30 minutes for the 18 cubic meter usage, the required flow rate is 36 cubic meters per hour.