MARYLAND THREAD! - Page 29

I hear that the forecast for tomorrow is 100 plus degrees.  Does anyone have any secrets for keeping your flock cool?  Today I gave them a tray of ice cubes to play with.  Do you have any ideas?

NANCY  

We do frozen berries (blueberries or strawberries), frozen whole kernel corn, frozen watermelon or cantelope rinds, or wet oatmeal mixed with yogurt.  I'm sure there are hundreds of other foods that can be chilled, but we save our rinds and bad berries and tops just for these occasions.  Good Luck

I use fans, keep the air moving and I also change out the water around 2 to 3 o'clock before the hottest heat. Also make sure they have shade to get into, usually where I locate the water also. 

Excellent ideas!  Thanks for sharing!  Any more?

I always keep 5 big ice blocks frozen in the freezer, and put them in a shallow pan with a gallon of water. It keeps for a good while. Today I froze a batch of bananas, and cut them up frozen. They loved it. Occasionally I will give them a big chunk of refridgerated watermelon. I do think I'm gonna get fans though. Today one of my girls jumped up on my arm, her feet were soo.. hot. That was in the evening AFTER it had cooled down some. I feel so guilty when it's like this. The fact that you care speaks volumes, some people don't.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrincessSweetChick 

I hear that the forecast for tomorrow is 100 plus degrees.  Does anyone have any secrets for keeping your flock cool?  Today I gave them a tray of ice cubes to play with.  Do you have any ideas?

 

NANCY  

A lot of people talk about freezing coffee cans, buckets and such filled with water and then leaving the frozen blocks (in the shade ) where the chickens can sit and lay against them. There are also sprinkler systems somewhere on this site, I think they may be called misting systems, that help. Where I am, we're in a drought so I can't use the misting hoses. I have a fan blowing through the coop, windows on both sides open to keep the air moving.  Be sure if your coop does have windows that you have hardware cloth or a sturdy wire covering them. Coons and foxes have excellent sense of smell.

Thanks for all the suggestions.  I plan to use them all.  Today I did the bottles and ice cubes I've got a bunch of bananas to freeze for tomorrow.  I'm going to look into fans and misting, too.  TOMORROW .... 96 degrees.

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Originally Posted by SunnySkies 

Anybody in MD have Silkie pullets? My sons saw some yesterday at a small farm we visited (so hot!) and fell in love. We aren't ready yet, but maybe mid-July? They don't want white ones though.

Good luck finding them. I've been looking for two weeks. Silkies are hard to get as pullets, until they are much older you can't tell the difference. I've got ads on here, in York and Baltimore Craigslist looking for one. Got 1 response from an awesome Silkie breeder that I know for a 12 wk old for $40.00. Not a bad price for her birds, but she only had blue, which I'm not crazy about. I got a pair of Splash from her in the spring that are beautiful. It seems that the only options are hatcheries, which have horrible quality birds (I learned the hard way). If you do find someone, please let me know, and I'll keep you in mind as I search.

M@M@2four and Brody's Broodello have silkies in MD. Friedeggs does too.