Dealing with heat stress in chickens

[Agathe]

I'm in Northern Norway and we've had a cold spring/start of summer that suddenly turned into unusually hot weather. I've asked about this before as my birds showed signs of heat stress, mostly at night, and it was suggested to put a fan in the coop. We had 3-4 days of really warm nights in the end and I tried a fan (also with ice packs behind it), in addition to keeping both doors open for extra ventilation, but there was no visible improvement for the birds. They seem to do mostly fine at 30 C (86 F) in the day but even with 19 C (66 F) in the coop at night, they're struggling. (Panting, wings out from their bodies.) All birds survived and are still laying like normal, but I already dread the next time this happens. The last night I tried making them sleep in the run as we have no predators and they seemed to do fine outside, but they wouldn't settle. The only other option I have left is putting them in the basement, but I don't have a cage big enough for all the birds and would have to let them run loose in the basement and I'm not sure it's safe and it's certainly not ideal. I'm not sure they'd settle there either, but it would be cool enough for them.

I've made sure to make them drink extra water during the day/evening, I've emerged them in water, given watery treats like water melon and so on. But there is only so much I can do during the night when they're really struggling. My birds are used to cold weather, is it possible that the sudden warm weather is what caused the trouble? Is it likely that they'll adapt eventually? How can I make things easier for them the next time this happens? I really hope there isn't another next time this year, but summer just started...

 

[chickengr]

my chickens are panting till they fall asleep. I hope yours will survive too.

 

[Agathe]

my chickens are panting till they fall asleep. I hope yours will survive too.

It's horrible to watch! Hope they'll be fine!

 

[MotherofOrpies]

If it reassures you, yesterday, I put the chickens to bed at 10pm, it was still 33C/ 91 F outside, I was really scared this morning I’d have dead chickens, but they all made it, I have a door with hardware cloth which helps with ventilation, even my 9 and 10 year old hens survived, if you really have chickens suffering under the heat, add a little apple cider vinegar to their drinking water, it helps them deal with the heat stress

 

[Mr Spot]

I'm in Northern Norway and we've had a cold spring/start of summer that suddenly turned into unusually hot weather. I've asked about this before as my birds showed signs of heat stress, mostly at night, and it was suggested to put a fan in the coop. We had 3-4 days of really warm nights in the end and I tried a fan (also with ice packs behind it), in addition to keeping both doors open for extra ventilation, but there was no visible improvement for the birds. They seem to do mostly fine at 30 C (86 F) in the day but even with 19 C (66 F) in the coop at night, they're struggling. (Panting, wings out from their bodies.) All birds survived and are still laying like normal, but I already dread the next time this happens. The last night I tried making them sleep in the run as we have no predators and they seemed to do fine outside, but they wouldn't settle. The only other option I have left is putting them in the basement, but I don't have a cage big enough for all the birds and would have to let them run loose in the basement and I'm not sure it's safe and it's certainly not ideal. I'm not sure they'd settle there either, but it would be cool enough for them.

I've made sure to make them drink extra water during the day/evening, I've emerged them in water, given watery treats like water melon and so on. But there is only so much I can do during the night when they're really struggling. My birds are used to cold weather, is it possible that the sudden warm weather is what caused the trouble? Is it likely that they'll adapt eventually? How can I make things easier for them the next time this happens? I really hope there isn't another next time this year, but summer just started...

I put ice in the waterers during the day, I also spray water on the ground in the run twice a day where the shade is, one side in the morning and the other side in the evening. It's been over 100 degrees here in Central Texas for over 30 days in a row and they seem to be doing fine so far and I also keep their feed outside of the coop.

 

[MotherofOrpies]

I also feed refrigerated watermelon