PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF POULTRY HOUSES UNDER DIFFERENT EVAPORATIVE COOLING SYSTEMS

Poultry production occupied a major role in the agriculture industry worldwide. Poultry housing design plays a vital role in determination of the internal climatic conditions for optimum health, growth and productive performance of the poultries. The present investigation aimed to evaluate the performance of different evaporative cooling systems with environmental control of poultry houses. The effect of two different evaporative cooling systems (direct and indirect) under three water flow rates of 2, 4 and 6 l/min.m on poultry houses performance was evaluated in terms of temperature reduction, relative humidity, evaporative cooling efficiency, poultry weight, consumed energy and cost. Experimental results revealed that using direct evaporative cooling system with 4 l/min.m water flow rate and indirect evaporative cooling system with 2 l/min.m water flow rate provided sufficient conditions of temperature reduction (9.59 and 7.28C), relative humidity (63.88 and 61.21%), cooling efficiency (75.67 and 83.67 %), poultry weight (2.4 and 2.3 kg) and consumed energy (1.2 and 6 kW.day) with net return (7.54 and 5.80 LE/kg), in that order. Based on previously mentioned results, it is recommended to use direct evaporative cooling system for poultry houses as it minimizes both energy and cost requirements compared to the indirect evaporative cooling system, therefore it was found to be suitable for small rural farmers.