Are Your Water Supply Pumps Large Enough?

Water usage on broiler farms has increased significantly over the last ten years. Though some of the increased water usage is due to faster growing and larger birds, it is changes in evaporative cooling systems that has had the largest effect. Ten years ago when a naturally-ventilated house with circulation fans was the norm the typical fogging system consisted of 50, one gal/hr nozzles, operating at 120 psi. This type of house required a well capacity of about one gallon per minute. Then came t...unnel-ventilated houses with over 160 fogging nozzles operating at nearly 200 psi and evaporative cooling system water usage jumped to three to four gallons per minute. Now there are fogging pads and high efficiency recirculatory pad systems which can easily use up to eight gallons of water per minute, about four times what the birds are drinking. As a result, it is crucial that a modern broiler farm has a well capacity of approximately 10 gallons per minute per house to meet the demands of the birds as well as the evaporative cooling system.