Cooling them down

[bsruther]

Our coop is shaded most of the day and during that time, the chickens seem to be pretty comfortable. For the past couple weeks though, there is a period during the late afternoon of about two hours when there's not much shade for them at all and they get pretty hot during that time. It seems that they can take pretty much heat, but I can tell by they're degree of panting and wing spread, when they are too hot. What I've been doing lately, when they get overheated is get out the garden hose, set the nozzle on spray and hose them down for about three minutes. It scared the crap out of them at first, but the more I do it, the more they tolerate it. As soon as I'm done, they just shake themselves off and become very active and lively and stay that way until they go in the coop for the night. There's no more panting for the rest of the day either. Anyone else do this?
I'm going to lean a big piece of plywood against the run today to give them more shade. Supposed to be 98° today.

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

Quote:
Same horrible weather here, was 101F at 5pm yesterday!! What I did this year was take a 50 ft section of soaker hose and I draped it across the top of all of my runs. Late in the afternoon I turn it on for 30 mins or so and it "wets" all 5 runs for me. The chickens have the option of getting directly under it, or not. Seems to help

Scott

 

[elmo]

I've been doing something similar: I hose down the ground in the tractor every hour or so in the afternoon, plus I have a fan blowing over a block of ice into the tractor.

I long for a 98 degree day; it's been well over 100 here for weeks now. We might get some rain this weekend to break the heat a bit. I'm crossing my fingers.

 

[nanawendy]

Don't forget the frozen bottles. They love to lay by them. Also put a pan of water with ice cubes in it. They will drink and maybe take a foot bath.