*8.5. Wetting*

Wetting of animals can be used to mitigate high heat loads via lowering the temperature of the microclimate surrounding animals. This approach has been used for cattle in feedlots and on livestock ships [52]. Wetting has been trialed and has been shown to lower peak body temperatures and hasten recovery from hyperthermia. Four water application methods (hosing, overhead sprinklers, leg sprinklers, and misters) were evaluated by Tait [52] in a CCR experiment with *B. taurus* cattle, and high-pressure hosing was found to be the most effective. It is unknown how practical water spray cooling would be on-board ships or how effective it would be for sheep. There are several concerns about the use of wetting for sheep. Wetting has the effect of increasing local humidity, causing undesirable wetting of the faecal pad and wetting the fleece of sheep which will only slowly dry in humid conditions. For these reasons, wetting has not been further explored for preventing harmful heat load in transported sheep but is considered to be a useful approach for cattle [52].
