Acclimating chicks to hot weather?

[docdubz]

I'm going to be moving my chicks outside once I'm done building their barn coop. Theres plenty of shade where their coop is being built but it's been over 100 (close to 110 yesterday) in the shade every day since July started. Their brooder temp is ~90* on the warm half of it, should I slowly increase the temp a couple days before I put them outside so they get used to it or should they be ok?

 

[Venac]

No! I wouldn't do that if it were me. There is no air movement inside. Gradually put them out side over a couple of days or even week. Outside there is air movement, that helps. You will cook your babies if u raise the temp inside. U can wet the ground outside, they will lay on the cooler wet ground, add a fan outside to promote air circulation, but don't raise the inside temp please? Just saying, it can cause more problems than its worth

 

[azygous]

I sense you understand that chickens have a much harder time dealing with heat than cold at any age. Chicks have a special problem in that they lack insulating feathers to help regulate body temperature, whether it's hot or cold in their world.

First, it helps to understand how baby chicks still in down react to temperature extremes. If you've ever watched lizards or snakes on hot days and cold days, you've probably noticed they move to a sun warmed rock or patch of dirt when the day is chilly, and they move to the shade or underground when it gets very hot. This is how baby chicks still in down handle temperature change. It's the most important thing to remember when trying to help chicks cope with temperature extremes.

If you stick a lizard in the hot sun and it can't move out of the sun, it will cook. Same with a baby chick. If you stick a lizard in a freezing spot and it can't move to a warmer spot, it will freeze. Ditto the chick.

In cold weather chicks can regulate their body heat better during the day because they are consuming calories. If the day is cold, they aren't as vulnerable as long as the calorie consumption keeps up with their need for internal heat. But if it's hot, chicks will need a way to shed excess body heat as they absorb it from the hot environment.

I think by now you're getting the idea. You need to provide ways for the chicks to shed excess body heat. I lived in the desert for many years. The average temp where I was, near Yuma, AZ was 117F in the long summer (in the shade). There was a little ground squirrel that had a fascinating strategy for shedding excess body heat. It was always on the move, but from time to time, it would dart into a shadow on the ground where the ground was a bit cooler than the ground (150F or higher) in the sun. It would prostrate itself, like a rug, on the shady spot effectively transferring its body heat to the cooler spot on the ground. Then, refreshed, it was off again.

Give your chicks such a heat exchange mechanism, such as a frozen water bottle to make contact with to exchange their heat into the cool surface. They will know instinctively to do this because their ancestors were giant lizards.

 

[Ryguy3684]

When the heat index gets that high, I've put a fan blowing over a block of ice towards the run. It works like an old swamp cooler. It'll raise the humidity some, but cool things down significantly. Also, they love pecking at frozen watermelon.

 

[docdubz]

Thanks for the input, everyone

 

[Urbanhens]

My chicks are 7 weeks old now, and I worry about them being outside today (temp predicted to be up to 102' today) and how to keep them cool. It sounds like wetting a patch of shady ground and offering frozen watermelon is the advice. I can bring them inside, but honestly they are getting a bit too big for what I have to keep them in inside the house, and I don't want them to start pecking at one another because don't have enough space. Any other tips greatly appreciated!

 

[azygous]

You guys can't seem to catch a break there in So.Cal. I remember in 1963 it being 110F in October there. I remember so well that date because I was nine months pregnant. Miserable.

Fans. Keep the air moving. Give the chickens a pan of ice cubes to play with. They love moving the cold things around with their feet and drinking the melt water.

If you haven't already, make a dirt bath out of sand or peat moss and dampen it with some water. Chickens adore a damp dirt bath on a hot day and it helps them discharge their excess body heat into the damp sand.

Another trick is to freeze the contents of a can of corn or fruit cocktail in a block of ice and let them peck at that.

All of the above will keep them happy while helping them manage the heat.

 

[Urbanhens]

Thank you, "Azygous!" I dampened the dirt in two or their favorite corners in the run and gave them watermelon. I used to use a mister with previous chickens (who I adopted as already-grown girls), but these chicks seem terrified of the mister when I tried it out. I'll try putting a pie pan of ice out there. Thank you for that tip!

 

[docdubz]

My chicks are 7 weeks old now, and I worry about them being outside today (temp predicted to be up to 102' today) and how to keep them cool. It sounds like wetting a patch of shady ground and offering frozen watermelon is the advice. I can bring them inside, but honestly they are getting a bit too big for what I have to keep them in inside the house, and I don't want them to start pecking at one another because don't have enough space. Any other tips greatly appreciated!

What I wound up doing back in August when it was 115-120 every day was I set up one of those cheap stand up fans just outside their run so that tit was blowing just above their heads and then two or three times a day I would spray the ground with the hose so that the water fell like it was raining, not enough that the ground was soaked but enough that it was damp. And I also have 3 oak trees on the far side of their run so I'd completely saturated the lower leaves so that they would drip for a while. That seemed to help the most. A couple times I didn't soak the leaves and they didn't seem to be able to cool off but when the water continued to drop down from the lower branches they would stop panting. If you don't have low hanging branches over your run maybe try hanging a soaked towel. Basically the idea I was running with was that it would be a half-***ed swamp cooler and it seemed to work well.

 

[Urbanhens]

Those are great suggestions, thank you! I chuckled at "half-***ed swamp cooler!"