Heavy Breathing in Cornish

[aclee]

I have 37 cornish left and this AM when I went out about 4 of them are open mouth breathing. They are laying down a lot and didn't want to go out of the coop, but they did walk out when I went near them (they know the drill....everyone out!) They went outside and walked around a bit and then laid back down. Some of these guys are my larger birds but not all 4, so I don't want to lose them. It is pretty humid out today though and has been raining off and on. Are they just hot, or is this heart failure. Just wanting to know if I should process these guys now or not. We are not planning to process till the 15th, and the cornish are 8 weeks now.

Thanks

 

[blueskylen]

it could be the hot weather - Saturday we had 90 humid degrees and all of mine were panting and laying out flat - i ended up with 3 fans on them and then installing an old air conditioner in the side of their coop. they are at 7 weeks, and was positive that I would lose some of them. 82 yesterday and with the air conditioner again- they looked fine this morning. I am watching them closely and if it gets above 80 again - the air goes back on. right now it is 72 and they have 2 fans on them.

i know that not everyone has an old air conditioner laying around, but it sure saved the day for me.

last year I had one die - an expected heart attack,- it was fine, then next time i looking in it was dead - no warning.

 

[aclee]

thanks for sharing...the coop is in the shade and it's nice and cool outside of the coop. It just rained here so it hopefully that cooled things off. We do have a spare A/C unit, but I think we're going to put it in the kids room...even though we have central air, their room gets so muggy. Maybe I'll go buy a big fan to put out there though. Have to go to Home Depot anyway.

Would they play in a sprinkler?

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

I don't know about the CX but most chickens enjoy a small bubble type sprinkler set in a small shallow pan (like an oil pan) they get in and cool their toes off.

 

[HLAC]

If they're 8 weeks now, I'd go ahead and process them. (at least the panting ones)

The fan will help too.

 

[jaku]

Process them now. You'll be super bummed if they die on you at 8 weeks!