That was some heat wave we had a couple weeks ago here in the PNW. My poor hens were miserable and I spent much of my day trying to devise ways to keep them cool. I added ice to their water. That was acceptable. Feed them frozen yogurt and frozen watermelon. Very acceptable. But when I put out frozen bottled water you would have thought I'd just got out the barbecue sauce and basting brush! They wanted nothing to do with it. I created a shallow pool of water so they could dunk their feet. I even went as far as to put a couple of them into it so they'd get the idea. They got an idea alright, the idea to squawk and run!
Finally I hit the jackpot. I was so impressed by my efforts that I called my dad and told him how I was keeping my chickens cool and he just laughed and said, "I raised hundreds of chickens in the desert heat and not once did I ever lose one to heat stroke." I was thinking, that was over 50 years ago. You can't even remember what you got for Christmas last year!"
What I did was set up a kiddie pool and placed the frozen bottled waters in the pool to cool the pool water. Then I set up a fan on one side of the pool so the air would skirt across the surface. On the opposite side of the pool I set up a makeshift mister, a water hose with an adapter letting out the tiniest bit of mist, then propped the hose against a lawn chair so it was just the right height to be effective. So the way it was set up, the fan was blowing across the pool and blowing the mist too, which actually cooled things down 10 degrees.
After all that all they needed were some of those tiny umbrellas in their ice water
Finally I hit the jackpot. I was so impressed by my efforts that I called my dad and told him how I was keeping my chickens cool and he just laughed and said, "I raised hundreds of chickens in the desert heat and not once did I ever lose one to heat stroke." I was thinking, that was over 50 years ago. You can't even remember what you got for Christmas last year!"
What I did was set up a kiddie pool and placed the frozen bottled waters in the pool to cool the pool water. Then I set up a fan on one side of the pool so the air would skirt across the surface. On the opposite side of the pool I set up a makeshift mister, a water hose with an adapter letting out the tiniest bit of mist, then propped the hose against a lawn chair so it was just the right height to be effective. So the way it was set up, the fan was blowing across the pool and blowing the mist too, which actually cooled things down 10 degrees.
After all that all they needed were some of those tiny umbrellas in their ice water
