How to keep chickens cool in the heat. Tips wanted!

[duckinnut]

Sounds like you doing what you can. I do the some of the things the others recommend my coop and run have lots of shade plus I spray down the run with water and some of the area where they free range.Give them a little misting in the process. Keep an eye on them if they are excessively panting get them inside somewhere cool in a/c .

 

[K-12 Chickens]

Thanks for the tips everyone!

Keep them coming!

 

[gale65]

I don't have a hose reaching to the run so I think I'll go out with the watering can later and wet down part of it. The mud won't hurt them then?

 

[chickengoober]

Quote:
Instead of going out every hour you can freeze whole waterbottles and put them inside your waterers. I'm dealling with 100- 105 degree weather here in TX, great tips everyone I ecpecially like the frozen milk jug one, i'll have to try that one sometime.

 

[gale65]

Quote:
Instead of going out every hour you can freeze whole waterbottles and put them inside your waterers. I'm dealling with 100- 105 degree weather here in TX, great tips everyone I ecpecially like the frozen milk jug one, i'll have to try that one sometime.

I wish I could do that but we're having trouble keeping enough 2 liter bottles frozen for our rabbits. The freezers can't even keep up and we have 2 big chest freezers plus the one on our fridge.

I throw out frozen tomatoes and grapes and they let them sit until they're warm and then eat them. They don't seem to like cold food at all.

 

[cmom]

I do have sprinklers in the birds yards and they like the water and get sprinkled on. I also wet down in their shade.

 

[TarainNC]

Thankfully my coop and run are fully shaded. I try to make sure they have lots of water, fresh greens/grass/weeds from my garden. Today I gave them some frozen peas, but they were not too keen on those. They are having some watermelon later today as it is cooling off in our extra frig. The garden is next to the run, so i let the sprinkler run wide enough to sprinkle the run, too. They like the cool dirt.

 

[redsoxs]

Like most of the rest I've been keeping their water fresh and cold and adding a lot of ice. They are eating very little so I made some puddles out in the yard - the love to wade in them - and I toss some scratch on top of the puddle - they seem to love to eat the grain out of the puddles. I've also been giving them frozen peas a couple times a day and today I bought two personal mist-ers from Home Depot. A couple seem to get the concept and get really damp in the mist, the rest are unsure. Maybe in a couple of days the rest will catch on. Hang in there - September will be here soon!!

 

[Jloeffler]

I tried spraying their run down today like some of you suggested. My dh laughed at me the whole time, until I pointed out that they weren't running from the mist spray but STANDING UNDER IT! I've also been giving them frozen corn - just the kernels. They love it! Fruit works too but my birds are partial to veggies. Maybe I'll try frozen peas next?

 

[kera!]

Quote:
scratch actually raises chicken body temps,, not the best in the summer