We have another heat wave. Anyone dunk their chickens in cool water to keep their body temps down? Good or bad idea? I have plenty of shade for them in the run and the coop is shaded, but with the dewpoint so high, the heat index is high too! It's miserable even in the shade, so I'm such a chicken when it comes to the heat, I brought all my chicks in the basement. I have 2 xl dog kennels I put side by side, so they can decide which one to sit in. I worry most for my Cochin and Brahma. Those two have the most difficulty and breathe very heavily in the heat. The downside of the kennels is there is not much space. I have only one roosting bar. Although, they seem to be super happy in there right now. If they get restless, outside they will go. Right now my run is 94 degrees in the shade and the coop is 89 degrees. The girls are downstairs at 70 degrees.. The heat index is currently at 100. Does it take a while for their feathers to dry? Could I give them a cool bath and put them back outside in a few hours when the sun isn't so hot? I personally don't mind them in the house as long as their happy too. I don't want to lose any of my girls to heat stroke. Am I worrying too much about this??? I do have 4 one gallon jugs of ice in the deep freezer along with a big fan. It just seems like the fan blows around the hot air. The chicks don't like the fan noise at all.
I wouldn't force it, but you can always provide a big rubber feed tub full of water for them to splash around in if they choose.
I don't know about dunking them. Maybe someone else will. I live in the desert and we've had temps of up to 114 in the past week and a forecast for 116 in the next few days. I turn the sprinklers on about twice a day and sprinkle treats or even just lay crumbles on the ground in the sprinkler area. All 8 of my ladies seem to enjoy the cool off. It's pretty funny watching such soggy chickens running through the sprinklers! When they are done, they all go off and find a shady spot to lay in the dirt until the next cool off time. At least this way they have a choice to get wet or not. BTW, here, they dry off very quickly since we have almost no humidity.
I would think if they get used to the 70 degree temps they will in worse shape when they have to go back outside., even if it isn't in the 90's. As for me I would pick the 70's and stay there till winte.
Quote:LOL.. Then I would have 8 happy house chickens. I'll take the 70 all year round. I've only brought them in once before when it was over 100 actual temp. It's gotten warmer this afternoon and the heat index will be around 106-108. My daughters would be heartbroken if we lost their feather footed chickens due to heat exhaustion/stroke. I'm only worried about the Cochin and brahma, I brought them all in because I didn't want to split up the flock and mess with the pecking order. Pretty soon it will be cold and temps will get down to -22 and we will have 6-7 months of cold weather, so I'm not really concerned with bringing the chicks in for a day or two. I could wet down their run and keep running water in there. I'll try that tomorrow. We don't have a plastic tub/bin for outside yet. I thought I could get them wet in the house one at a time.
There are misters that attach to hoses and I hear they keep chickens cool. Thinking of getting one If need be, but here in Montana we rarely get to 85 these days lol
We froze ice cream buckets/milk jugs of water and put that out in the shady area of the run for them. As it melts, they hang out around it. I also added ice to their waterers. It helps.
dont know about chickens but I know that the rapid temp change from soaking a dog is bad, my parents lost a dog that way
