Use of Evaporative Cooling for Broiler Chicken Production in Areas of High Relative Humidity

Abstract ALTHOUGH evaporative cooling to reduce high summer temperatures in poultry houses is widely used in the arid West and Southwest, the practice has not been used extensively in the more humid Southeast. With the trend to more tightly enclosed houses in the South and to more mechanical ventilation, there is increased interest in the use of evaporative cooling in humid areas, even though it is known that the potential cooling effect is less in humid areas. The reluctance to use evaporative cooling in high-humidity areas may be because it is generally recognized that excessive humidity in poultry houses may result in decreased performance of the chickens. Winn and Godfrey (1967) classify humidities above 80% as "too wet," and found that as temperature goes above 26.7°C, high relative humidities have an adverse effect on productive performance. Drury et al. (1968) got significantly better weight gains in two of three…