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True! No point in adding water if the air can’t absorb it, since it is the evaporation that has the cooling effect. We’re in CA and it’s usually super dry. Good for mist cooling, bad for wildfires…

That sounds great! Just remember that a fan itself doesn’t cool chickens down, because they don’t sweat. Fan over ice or wet sheets will cool the air. But if you put a fan to blow under your coop, where it’s probably cooler than the surrounding air, you might actually be heating that space up to...

Darker colors don’t create more shade. That’s a matter of how opaque your material is. Darker colors just absorb the light and turn it into heat, where lighter colors reflect it.

If there’s a choice, I would always pick a lighter color to reflect the heat. Under a small tarp like in your picture it probably doesn’t make a big difference because there’s so much air circulating under it, but in other set ups it’s definitely noticeable. I recently exchanged an old black...

Tarps are iffy because they deteriorate so quickly in the sun and then you have an unusable mess. I highly recommend shade cloth instead. It lasts and lasts. I got mine 6 years ago and it’s up for 7 months a year and it looks like new. I got a light color so it doesn’t heat up much and I am...

Thank you! Yes, that was one of my most stressful chicken days so far! Luckily temps have gone down enough (highs of 95 at most) that I can put the dog out there with them and let the chickens roam. I set up an additional line of misters under the redwoods where the babies like to hang out and...

Rough day here! Temps went up to 103 and the “babies” (hatched March 1st) were struggling. I integrated them into the flock a bit over a week ago, but there is still some chasing and pecking going on and the little ones spend all their time in the coop, not venturing out into the run. Turned my...

we’re on s well, too. Luckily with solar panels… And we have a large holding tank, so it’s not running the well pump all the time when we turn on the misters.

Because the spray is so fine, they don’t use much water, I wouldn’t worry.

Your pictures give me an idea! Next time when the heat is brutal (105+) I will bring out my tub and put the treats in a bowl in the center so they have to step in the tub (and water) to get to them. Maybe that’ll help them learn that standing in water is nice….

Trouble with relying on a roof for shade when your run is so small is that the shade from the roof will not cover most of the run, most of the time. I use a double layer of quality grey shade cloth over our run (it’s holding up amazingly well, this is the 6th summer with it and it looks like...

I use those sturdy black plastic concrete mixing tubs, rectangular, about 2’x3’ maybe a bit bigger. Great for dust baths, too, and as doggy pool…

One thing to keep in mind when thinking about fans: chickens don’t sweat, so air movement per se doesn’t cool them like it does us, or horses, etc. Fans are great for cooling a barn or coop if that structure heats up in the sun, but it will of course not cool it down more than the outside air...

If your air is dry and hot try misters. They attach to a garden hose (I have my hose on a timer) and are inexpensive and easy to set up and use.

You don’t really want to make them work hard in the heat, as that’ll just make them hotter. Better, and less fuss, to just dump a bag of frozen corn (or peas or blueberries) into a bowl filled with an inch or two of water. They’ll stick their heads in the cool water to get at the treats which...

Ha! I will try that!

I wish my chickens weren’t such chickens! If I put frozen water bottles in the nestboxes they won’t go in. If I put frozen water bottles in the run they avoid them like the plague. They won’t stand in water either. So for all the normal hot days (up to 105 or so) I just use the overhead misters...

I only use them once - fill with water, freeze and use for the chickens and then toss them into the recycling. We have enough fresh bottles from juice and Kefir, etc... that I never need to reuse a bottle that has been used for the chickens.