Arizona Chickens

[Diannastarr]

@Diannastarr well I wouldn't say I'm insane guess you have to actually see our design in person the way I work the a/c is just to bring down the intense heat, in a mostly enclosed place and it's timed so it costs me 50 dollars in electricity a month to provide them with relief during the hottest part of day,

I do understand your viewpoint though

Also to credit those against a/c my hen turned rooster gets ice bottles shade and misters only and survived without a/c perfectly, for me though I cool my girls bc have you ever noticed they need to eat more than roos so they heat up that way and staying in the nesting box during heat is hard on them with no water and they heat up pushing out an egg so I put their nesting boxes back there and they didn't have to pant so much

sorry didn't mean you were insane,but to try and cool an open air coop with an a/c unit , which is not the best for that purpose , but better done with a swamp cooler & fan taking the heat off the roof area and cooling down the coop inside that shaded area , that works the best..! & my girls are proof of that, i have not seen one of my birds panting from any summer time heat. and the cost to run a swamp cooler is a lot less then running an air conditioner by far.

 

[meetthebubus]

@igorsMistress thanks for that! Thinking back I wonder if it's just the general health of the chicken, I have one girl who hardly lays right now, but she's the last one to get hot, I had one who had a hard time at night and would cry/breathe so I would go with a flashlight and shaved ice and they would eat that and rest comfortably the rest of the night

 

[meetthebubus]

@Diannastarr oh I know it was just your opinion that's cool I think you shouldn't worry about expressing freely, I was just saying I think a bit differently on that but get what ya mean

 

[SonoranChick]

NEW DOG HAS ARRIVED!!!

 

[cavemanrich]

Do you know age? Looks young to me. Also I see some Doberman in face features. I am not a dog expert by the way. Really nice looking.

 

[Bobby Basham]

its not insane to want to cool off your birds, but an air conditioner or a/c is not the way to go about it if you live in AZ, the best way to cool off your open air coop is to use An evaporative cooler, thats what i use and its on all day long so my hens can lay their eggs in peace with out dying from the heat, they lay more eggs that way, its on all day long until the temps drop at night , the evaporative cooler is also know as a swamp cooler, its a device that lowers air temperature , with the use of running water through cooler pads, and a fan that blows air through the cold wet pads , Unlike an air conditioning systems, which works to remove humidity from the area & wont work very well at all in a open air coop because they are made to remove humidity in a sealed room in states heavy with humility like fla. in AZ evaporative coolers use the natural ability to lower air temperature. plus running one of them is much cheaper then running a air conditioner, most evaporative coolers use this technique to make indoor and outdoor spaces more comfortable, this is the cooling i use for my hens in their open air coop they love it and spend most days in the cool air,

I like the idea of swamp cooling for outside, but I would NEVER use it in my house because of the excess humidity and all my wood furnishings. Years ago, I bought a beautiful 1973 RCA XL100 console TV from a coworker who had swamp cooling. You older folks know what I'm talking about with those big beautiful cabinets. The top and the base of the cabinet had warping all over the place and part of the finish was cracked and peeled.

Sorry if I strayed a bit, but I don't want any swamp cooling on my indoor prized possessions. --BB

 

[SonoranChick]

Do you know age? Looks young to me. Also I see some Doberman in face features. I am not a dog expert by the way. Really nice looking.

Thank you so much, I think she's quite the cutie too. I see either Doberman or rottie, but she's super lanky and lean...total mutt! Who knows. We think she's about 6 months, but the vet will be able to give us a better clue. Her teeth are incredibly white so that tells me she is a youngin.

 

[BlueBaby]

View attachment 1170184 NEW DOG HAS ARRIVED!!!

She has some pretty tri-coloring in it. My dog Buster is a mix too. He's a 3/4 Rotty and 1/4 black lab.

 

[BlueBaby]

I like the idea of swamp cooling for outside, but I would NEVER use it in my house because of the excess humidity and all my wood furnishings. Years ago, I bought a beautiful 1973 RCA XL100 console TV from a coworker who had swamp cooling. You older folks know what I'm talking about with those big beautiful cabinets. The top and the base of the cabinet had warping all over the place and part of the finish was cracked and peeled.

Sorry if I strayed a bit, but I don't want any swamp cooling on my indoor prized possessions. --BB
View attachment 1170244 View attachment 1170245 View attachment 1170246

My next door neighbor had a motor in their swamp cooler attached to the house blow up and burn the house down in the middle of the night 3 or 4 months ago.

 

[DesertChic]

I'm going to buck the conventional wisdom here and suggest that heat tolerance has less to do with fluffy feathering and more to do with body composition. I say this because I've noticed massive differences in fat accumulation and content in the birds I've butchered, and those with more body fat have definitely had a harder time dealing with the heat than my leaner birds irrespective of feathering. Just my two cents of experience.