Thanks everyone, I thought it would be the case that shade in summer is good. They do get free-range time in the afternoon when the kids play with them in the woods,
so they can bask in the sunny patches if they want. I think they'll be happy to keep cool, no hosing down needed.
Does anyone have a chicken run that gets virtually no sun in summer?
We're building a 175 sq ft run out of a dog run on our property --chain link which we're covering with hardware cloth & we have a 4-sided hardware cloth & timber roof on it, 12 inches of gravel, 4 inches of sand, but it's all...