Dhkoenig
Songster
Good Morning. I had a question related to extreme and sudden heat. We normally have around 70s and 80s here in the summer but we are experiencing a prolonged heat wave now where the temps have been high 90s for a few days and extremely humid. I have shade, plenty of water, tons of ventilation in their coop (a whole human door is just wire (right next to their roost) and another has two windows ). They get watermelon, fans, I throw ice on the ground and put out shallow pans of water but the heat and humidity is still causing them to heat up pretty good. Not to mention one of them decided it was a fun time to become broody but that is a side note.
The other evening they were all walking around with their beaks open wide and had their wings away from their bodies and were panting. It was maybe like 6pm. I have a large plastic bin so I filled it with nice temp water, not cold, not warm and I put each of them in there for a while. It wasn't enough to cover their whole breast, it basically was only deep enough to come up to the top of their legs, but I gently splashed the water up around the bottom of their tails and around their breast. They did NOT enjoy it and when each came out they looked miserable, immediately preening and looking at me like "what the heck did you do that for?!" BUT.....they did stop panting and their combs went back to red from really pale. Only one of them seemed to still be distressed (the broody one) so I put a pan of ice on the poopy board underneath her roost at bedtime.
Long story I know but my question is - today and tomorrow are supposed to be even worse. I was thinking about maybe putting them in a bin of chest high room temp water just before they go to bed so that their body temperature comes down a bit and hopefully the dampness of their feathers will keep them from heating up too badly but I have also heard that they need to regulate so being damp might cause more harm than good. Can anyone with lots of experience and is very educated on chickens weigh in on this for me before tonight? Thanks
The other evening they were all walking around with their beaks open wide and had their wings away from their bodies and were panting. It was maybe like 6pm. I have a large plastic bin so I filled it with nice temp water, not cold, not warm and I put each of them in there for a while. It wasn't enough to cover their whole breast, it basically was only deep enough to come up to the top of their legs, but I gently splashed the water up around the bottom of their tails and around their breast. They did NOT enjoy it and when each came out they looked miserable, immediately preening and looking at me like "what the heck did you do that for?!" BUT.....they did stop panting and their combs went back to red from really pale. Only one of them seemed to still be distressed (the broody one) so I put a pan of ice on the poopy board underneath her roost at bedtime.
Long story I know but my question is - today and tomorrow are supposed to be even worse. I was thinking about maybe putting them in a bin of chest high room temp water just before they go to bed so that their body temperature comes down a bit and hopefully the dampness of their feathers will keep them from heating up too badly but I have also heard that they need to regulate so being damp might cause more harm than good. Can anyone with lots of experience and is very educated on chickens weigh in on this for me before tonight? Thanks
