Dealing w/ extereme heat??

[Heathercp]

Quote:
I'll second this. It's hotter than blazes here in NC and the humidity is about as high as it can get. This morning it was 80F at 6am when I went out to start my chicken chores. Honestly, the chickens seem to be handling the heat better than I am.

This is my first year with chickens, but the second summer for many of my birds. They free range all day and find the spots that are most comfortable for them. I've got a large galvanized waterer that I move outside each morning and two 24" saucers (the kind you put under pots) that I fill with water. I can see them from the house, so I can keep an eye on them. Last week I spotted a red shouldered hawk sitting in one of the saucers. Poor thing was also thirsty. Thank goodness my flock was smart enough to get out of the way. Even the babies managed to hide. A couple of days after the hawk I saw a crow in the saucer. Everybody is thirsty in weather like this.

I'm getting an egg a day from everybody, but I have noticed that the poop is getting much runnier which I think can is a sign of heat stress. They're drinking much more than they otherwise do, so it's not surprising. Everybody is really active and they all seem content, so I'm not worried about them. I really think that as long as they've got plenty of water and shade, they'll do what they have to do to be comfortable.

 

[cfdf]

I'm a newbie and not an expert at all...but...this is what I am doing. I live in Central Texas and it has been super hot and humid. Inside my hen house we have cut large welded wire windows, lots of ventillation holes in the upper eves, 2 fans and added a screen door for use during the day. We close the solid door at night for protection. In the run I have put sunshade fabric we purchased at Lowes over the top, I have 2 fans blowing, and a mister. The mister made the biggest difference in the temperature. The chickies didn't like it at first. I closed their pop door so that they couldn't go inside the coop. Once they got use to it, they loved it. They sit where the mist hits them now. I also freeze water in plastic milk jugs and place it around the run. They gather around it and put their bodies against the jugs. I put ice in a shallow tub that eventually melts. The chickies would walk on the ice and in the water when it melts. They drink the cold water. I also take one of their waterers and freeze it. I put it out in the morning letting it slowly melt keeping their water cool. (I have other waterers in the run also that are not frozen.) I have given the chickies cold watermelon and frozen corn (I have read on here that corn turns up chickies thermal heat so I am not sure this is a good idea....don't really know) I have also sprayed their run down with water....I don't soak it....I just give it a light misting to cool the ground. So far this has worked for me. I will probably be adding a few more windows for cross ventillation. There is one thing I do know for sure....when it's hot outside..like it is everywhere right now...all the fans are doing is blowing hot air around. The mister put in front of the fan was the best thing I did.

 

[SkyWarrior]

I'm in Montana, and we're just starting to get temperatures in the 90s or so. My main concern is keeping the barn ventilated (which we have) and making sure the chickens have enough water. I check on the water to make sure they didn't clog it up with wood shavings. I put the geese outside with the kiddie pool in the morning. I wet down the turkey. Beyond that, I don't bug them. I keep an eye on their behavior, but that's pretty much it.

This is my first year with chickens.

 

[mener6896]

I'm not sure if this is a heat issue or not. I assumed it was... I live in Indiana where we have been having very high 90's and 100 the last several weeks. I've been trying to do all of the above to keep the chickens cool. Friday when they were free ranging, my favorite hen wasn't acting right. She usually runs up to me to be picked up and lay her head on my shoulder, but she was just standing around the yard panting. Not really dust bathing, or anything, as the rest of the chickens were doing. This scared me as she was my first chicken (1 year 1/2 ago, now up to 65 but that's beside the point) I brought her in to our ICU coop in our garage, gave her ice water, food, and a sliced cucumber, thinking the more water content I could get into her the better. Then I decided to bring her into the air conditioning for a bit. When dusk came and the rest were headed to the coop, I took her down there to join the rest for bed. The next morning I found her dead on the poop deck like she had just fallen off the roost. Needless to say, I have been devastated. She was my SweetPea!! The only one of my hens that I had this huge connection with. She would always hang around with me in the front yard when the others all stayed out back. She was the first to run to me...both of my dogs (a Lab and Cavachon) my barn calico cat, and SweetPea all had the same coloring, and they all matched and hung out together!! Can you tell I am devastated? Sorry to take over this thread, but I just got to typing and couldn't stop!! Could this have been anything other than heat? I wonder if I had kept her in the AC all night if she would've made it...

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

Quote:
Although it could have been heat related, it probably wasn't. There are many things that happen to cause death in chickens.

We are in Florida and of course, the heat and humidity is normal for here. Our chicken hand in shady places (we have lots of them) during the day. We don't do anything special for the heat except to put fans in their coops to keep the air moving.

In the big girls coop which is wire on three sides, I have the fan in the rafters pointing at the roosts. When they come in late in the afternoon, they usually eat and get water, then get up on the roosts, hold out their wings and face the fan. They obviously like it!

 

[elmo]

Quote:
First of all, I'm very sorry you lost your hen. Secondly, I doubt very much bringing her indoors all night would have made any difference; after all, night is the time when the temperature outdoors is at its lowest.

There are a lot of things that could have caused her death. Many times when chickens die there's no really clear explanation for it (absent a necropsy, and sometimes not even then).

I'm so very sorry. Please don't blame yourself. You did everything you possibly could.

 

[valreegrl]

Here, in PA, we had a horrendous weekend with heat/humidity.
Heat index was 110 and I tried everything with my girls.

About 3 weeks ago the temp was 103. I had a chicken who was weak since birth. She developed neurological problems and I thought for sure she wouldn't make it through winter. But she did and come spring she began laying again.
She passed during that heat wave

Anyway, I had buckets of ice in the coop to lay against and was misting continuously during that heat wave and this past weekend. But Saturday morning I had a young chick laying on its side panting heavily and my older girls were laying in mud panting also. In a panic I forced my husband to set up my extra dog crates and in the young all 8 girls came!

Sunday evening a cold front came through and back out they went but I tell you, the girls thoroughly enjoyed the air conditioning. After an hour or so in the house they were singing and flapping their wings. Two girls even left us an egg in the morning.

But....still reading up on ways to keep them cool OUTSIDE the house

I am slightly leery about using fans as the wires scare me. And I tried the trash cans with ice inside and the girls would not go near them.

 

[2dogs1cat]

I've kept their waterer full, added ice cubes when it's been real hot, and offered more wet foods to eat - their feed dampened, berries, wet cooked grain, etc. They free range the yard and have stayed under the bushes or in the shade. One morning I couldn't find them and finally located them on the opposite side of the house in a dust bath they made - a place they hadn't gone to before. This afternoon I found them on the deck in front of a large fan that was running - we had foster pups outside in a pen and had used the fan to cool them, they're now homed out but the fan was left on.

Surprisingly, their coop is quite comfortable w/o any help on our part. It is elevated and not roofed fully (hubby needs to finish) so I think it naturally cools better.

Yesterday one of my hens was walking through the side yard with her tail feathers and butt so low to the ground it had me worried. They she shook probably 2 pounds of dust out...she was sure weighed down by it all *lol*

When they find a cool dusty spot they stretch out and enjoy it...though it always shocks me a bit at first because they look dead.