Don't laugh! Do my chickens need shade?

[Ft Chix]

They need shade, they get hot just like all animals. THe tarp is a good idea.

 

[Mahonri]

Quote:
Amen, Amen, and Amen!

 

[threehorses]

As a little hint for those of you who have turkeys, too - and this surprised me, but I'll pass it along.

I always use wading pools and pans that are short - like the little bitty pools you get from petsmart, or pans about 7 inches or so high. I use them for my geese in case they want different water than our pond (which is now dry). Tall enough where a chicken, if he fell in, would just be chest high and could get out even wet in other words. Petsmart makes one that is ideal because it's smaller and easier to dump out daily (onto the bushes that I keep as shade plants - so I waste no water).

I go out and every day all three of my big turkeys are standing in the water like little old ladies wading at the beach. They have the most beautific looks on their faces! It's really precious.

So if you turkeys...

Actually, I gave my baby poults (about 1.5 feet high now) a baby sized pan to stand in today. I wonder if they'll figure it out like the big girls?

 

[2txmedics]

Ok, Im in South Texas...today it was very hot 105 index...What Ive been doing now for a week is going out side during the hottest part of the day and 3-4times I grab the hose and spray my chickens...pointing the hose up letting it come down like rain.

I was afraid to wet the run too much as it would make mud, but now Im reading its ok??? I read somwhere in here that someone gets milk containers...freezes water and puts the ice in coop, thus cooling down the coop and if its off the ground, it cools the ground under the coop where they lay. this is very CHEAP!!!!

old milk jugs ...water...and just an old aluminum trash can, for that matter even an old ice cooler.

 

[Eggs4Sale]

I used a king-sized sheet from Goodwill. Probably would've been a lot easier to use a tarp, but I'm not into easy. I'm into annoying.

Now I've decided to add another sheet. The first just doesn't cover enough area when the sun is slanting in.

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
Ha! You do thinks MY way - the complicated way!

 

[TerriLaChicks]

Walmart has sun screen tarps that do a good job of shading while letting air flow through & they don't collapse if rained on.

 

[muell112]

I put some camo burlap fabric up for mine. Granted we live in Maine but it's still good to give them access to shade so they can make the choice/regulate their temperature. Access to shade and plenty of fresh water...Chickens drink a lot of water.

 

[The Chicken People]

Metal oil pans work great and arent that expensive ..I add gallon jugs of ice..mine love it..I also mist them and water down cop and run..mostly they free range in the shade!

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
I didn't know they had those! I need to get a couple of those for the western side of my barn -my "feed room" to keep some of the sun off of my feed bins. They stay cool, as they're light metal, but *I* don't stay cool when I'm digging out my feed!

Thanks for the heads-up!

By the way, on extra waterers - be sure if you get tubs or baby-pools that they're short enough to where a small hen could stand up with the water only up to her back max. I've had even a duck drown in a bucket once (horrible).

Around here, I keep the more shallow cheaper baby pools (because the cheaper ones are more shallow - redundant huh? heheh) filled with water for all the geese, turkeys, chickens. I also have a couple of short rubber tubs from the feedstore with water in them. I dump them on the shade-plants (so that their leaves don't fall off), rinse, and refill daily.

My hens stay perched on the edges of them (though they can drink from them just by standing beside them), and the turkeys spend a lot of the day wading in those little wading pools!