# DIY Misting System



## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

I just wanted to share this with everyone. You may have already seen this or are implementing this. 

HUBBY MAKES A MISTING FAN FOR HIS GIRL... - Horse and Man

In my search to help keep my old girl (who has once again stopped sweating this summer) cool, I came across this.
I have been tirelessly looking for a misting system that would work that was fairly inexpensive. Everyone is out of stock and what they do have is extremely expensive.
I am going to make this and see how it works for her. She is in the stall all day under fans but without the sweat, she is still overheating. Hopefully this will be her ticket to comfort until October.


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## tim62988 (Aug 30, 2012)

i'm going to come across harsh but you do NOT want a misting fan!

mist = humidity

what you want is the moisture to get down to your horses' skin so you need water droplets then a strong enough fan to provide evaporative cooling


misting used to be a big thing in the dairy cow industry but they found that although when you walk into the barn you think it feels nice, that the mist is actually just sitting on the hair not making its way to the skin where cooling takes place but by increasing the size of the water droplets the water was making its way down through the haircoat to the skin, but then you need a good fan to actually blow dry the water to cool the animal https://agselect.com/pdf/cattle-cooling.pdf


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

tim62988 said:


> i'm going to come across harsh but you do NOT want a misting fan!
> 
> mist = humidity
> 
> ...


You are not coming across as harsh. 
I understand the concept that you are talking about, but I think in my case, the water will be enough to get my mare wet to the skin. Also, she has three other high powered fans going on her. She's practically living in a wind tunnel during the day. I just need to keep her damp like she would be if she were sweating. 

I ended up finding one on Amazon and purchased it this afternoon. The one complaint that people had about it is that it was more than a fine mist and things got wet. Exactly what I needed. I will be hanging it to wet her back and neck and hopefully it works for her. If not, the misting fan will go on my front porch and I'll come up with something else for her. I've tried several remedies for her and thus far, nothing has worked. Last year I put those patches on her and gave her Sweat Again supplement. She started sweating again but it also cooled off right at the same time so I don't really know which worked if any. This year, nothing is working. I give her salt and electrolytes in her feed in hoping that will help but so far that isn't working either.


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## tim62988 (Aug 30, 2012)

sounds like a good product if it's making "too much" mist, good luck and let us know how it goes


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

My only concern about the misters comes from living in the desert and using a "swamp cooler" for the house. It sprayed water on the pads and blew water cooled air through out the house and on dry, 113 F days, it was awesome, dropped the temps 20+ degrees. But if there was any humidity in the air, it was useless. The other thing that concerns me is that they recommend you scrape the water off of horses in hot weather because it can 'super heat' and cause them to get hotter. How does your vet feel about them? I've seen them at shows here in OK and TX and wasn't impressed.


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> My only concern about the misters comes from living in the desert and using a "swamp cooler" for the house. It sprayed water on the pads and blew water cooled air through out the house and on dry, 113 F days, it was awesome, dropped the temps 20+ degrees. But if there was any humidity in the air, it was useless. The other thing that concerns me is that they recommend you scrape the water off of horses in hot weather because it can 'super heat' and cause them to get hotter. How does your vet feel about them? I've seen them at shows here in OK and TX and wasn't impressed.


I don't know how it's going to work, it may not work that well at all. I thought about the humidity, but right now, she's huffing and puffing until someone hoses her down and she good for a little while under the fans. I think that she doesn't heat up from the soaking because she is in the shade with three fans blowing on her. I am willing to try just about anything. She started this last summer and now again this summer. I tried the few things that I did last time but they are not working this time. 
She's also the same girl that has cushing's disease. I don't know if that is related or not. Usually with cushings they sweat in bucket fulls I thought. I do clip her frequently to keep the hair off of her. I honestly don't know how many more summers she can take like this, it's pretty hard on her at 25 years old. But, when the temps drop, she's back to her old self.


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## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

_I don't know about misting with the fan thing with how humid it has been lately in Florida...HORRIBLE!!!
My concern is now you are introducing water vapor and electricity together....shocking could be a understatement.

So....fans, shade, electrolytes and One AC....

*Have you tried giving her DARK BEER?*
I know if sounds crazy...but a can in the AM and again one PM may make her system start to sweat again...
If nothing else you will have something to sip while watching her and figuring this out again...

A thought.....
:runninghorse2:....
jmo...

_


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## Prairie (May 13, 2016)

I'm another one who would be concerned with mixing water and electricity that close together. We do use a misting system with fans in our dog kennel, but the misters are a good 3 feet in front of the fans with a ground that is outside of the kennel area. Our dogs love their "air conditioning" and really get excited when I turn it on in the heat of summer----they seem to prefer it over their swimming pools.


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## tim62988 (Aug 30, 2012)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> My only concern about the misters comes from living in the desert and using a "swamp cooler" for the house. It sprayed water on the pads and blew water cooled air through out the house and on dry, 113 F days, it was awesome, dropped the temps 20+ degrees. But if there was any humidity in the air, it was useless. The other thing that concerns me is that they recommend you scrape the water off of horses in hot weather because it can 'super heat' and cause them to get hotter. How does your vet feel about them? I've seen them at shows here in OK and TX and wasn't impressed.


generally i think they say to scrape the water off a horse because we are generally either turning them back out to pasture, or throwing them in a stall where most people's idea of a fan is a box fan

the dairy industry goes with a big fan (not a big TSC fan, something with a heavy motor moving a ton of air) so you get water on the skin, then you get air that is going to penetrate the haircoat and get to the skin


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