Help heat stress

[Danny451]

We live in the northwest and it normally is in the mid 70 this time of year. Today the temperature spiked to 100 and for the next 2 days it is going to be 100 to 109. My girls were really panting off and on all day but had lots of shady spots to hide out in. I had lots of cool water and / frozen fruit and peas. I couldn’t find the electrolytes I had on hand when they were little. I tried to spray down all around there area with water. I even took some hay and put it in the freezer and then tried to get them to hang out on it. Im a newbie and This is my first flock (4 months old). One of my birds I’m really worried about. She is our biggest bird an Ameraucana. She is super flighty bird and she doesn’t tolerate handling well at all. I just checked and the coop is still at 87 degrees. Outside it’s 85 degrees. I have a fan in there. My big girl is still panting and has her neck starched out kinda weird and is still painting . I tired to get her early today and she just freaked out. I didnt want to keep pushing her et more over heated and running from me. I’m don’t know when I should intervene force an inter They have tons shade. They were all very reactive and agitated all day. Several squabbles throughout the day and they usually are not like that. They were roosting tonight but still pecking at each other. Tomorrow is going to be even hotter. Again this was a sudden weather spike change from 70 degrees to 100.

 

[BarredRockMom]

Hi Danny451:
Gosh, I'm visiting in the Pacific Northwest & it is SO dang hot, I know. Any chance you could get the chickens some Pedialyte? That would help to balance their electrolytes for sure.

I've also heard that folks get large kiddie pools for them the stand in, with enough water to cover their feet.

I've fed ice cold watermelon and put a bootle of water in the freezer & used that in the middle of their water container as a longer lasting source of cold water. I go thru a lot of bottles that way, so I have to keep swapping them out.

This heat is really tough on animals, I know.
Any chance that you could chicken-nap them off of their perches tonight, one at a time & wet them down with warmish water? (You don't want to shock their systems, just kick in a natural evaporative cooling effect.). That might help them.

Otherwise, you seem to be doing a good job of trying to help them manage. Wetting down their yard areas, making sure that they have fans, water & shade are good ideas. How about digging some holes?? Sometimes they can find some cooler ground a little deeper...though I dunno about that one with it being this hot...

Several years ago, one of my girls did get overheated & very stressed. She was not much for being handled either, until I caught her, brought her inside the cool basement, popped her into the stationary tub for a wet down & some Pedialyte. She hung out quietly for about 30 minutes, perked back up & went back outside with no more issue, thankfully. But it wasn't this hot, either!

Good luck & I'm sending chilly vibes your way!

 

[ThePamperedChick]

We live in the northwest and it normally is in the mid 70 this time of year. Today the temperature spiked to 100 and for the next 2 days it is going to be 100 to 109. My girls were really panting off and on all day but had lots of shady spots to hide out in. I had lots of cool water and / frozen fruit and peas. I couldn’t find the electrolytes I had on hand when they were little. I tried to spray down all around there area with water. I even took some hay and put it in the freezer and then tried to get them to hang out on it. Im a newbie and This is my first flock (4 months old). One of my birds I’m really worried about. She is our biggest bird an Ameraucana. She is super flighty bird and she doesn’t tolerate handling well at all. I just checked and the coop is still at 87 degrees. Outside it’s 85 degrees. I have a fan in there. My big girl is still panting and has her neck starched out kinda weird and is still painting . I tired to get her early today and she just freaked out. I didnt want to keep pushing her et more over heated and running from me. I’m don’t know when I should intervene force an inter They have tons shade. They were all very reactive and agitated all day. Several squabbles throughout the day and they usually are not like that. They were roosting tonight but still pecking at each other. Tomorrow is going to be even hotter. Again this was a sudden weather spike change from 70 degrees to 100.

 

[ThePamperedChick]

Use water misters all around the run and by openings to the coop. This will dramatically lower air temperature and heat stress. It really works.

 

[ThePamperedChick]

Try adding B-12 liquid vitamin (for poultry) and electrolytes in their drinking water. Both help in time of stress. I've seen photos of chickens in swimming pools floating along, very content with themselves. Why not try a kiddie pool. They may not take to it at first but with persistence they can learn to enjoy without fear of drowning.

 

[Allthefloofs]

Freeze gallon jugs of water and place them in shady spots. Just drain about 3 inches out of the jug before freezing and leave the lids loose. We live in Scottsdale and have a lot of 120 degrees to deal with here and frozen gallon water containers are a staple, I put two in about 2 or three feet and the girls love to sit in between them. Fans are good, misters are good, but only under about 40% humidity or they don't work well. I have some 18 inch pot trays from Amazon or a garden store and I put water in them on the hot days and put some ice in those, they drink/stand in them. I give them watermelon and frozen quinoa or frozen premade rice as well as putting rooster booster in their water with ice cubes. I am so sorry you are having to deal with this, it's so hard to deal with sudden heat surges. As much as we suffer, our girls in down coats suffer all the more!

 

[ThePamperedChick]

Freeze gallon jugs of water and place them in shady spots. Just drain about 3 inches out of the jug before freezing and leave the lids loose. We live in Scottsdale and have a lot of 120 degrees to deal with here and frozen gallon water containers are a staple, I put two in about 2 or three feet and the girls love to sit in between them. Fans are good, misters are good, but only under about 40% humidity or they don't work well. I have some 18 inch pot trays from Amazon or a garden store and I put water in them on the hot days and put some ice in those, they drink/stand in them. I give them watermelon and frozen quinoa or frozen premade rice as well as putting rooster booster in their water with ice cubes. I am so sorry you are having to deal with this, it's so hard to deal with sudden heat surges. As much as we suffer, our girls in down coats suffer all the more!

Today, it is ungodly hot and humid which is so rare for our climate. This feels like the Eastern Seaboard. Having rare humidity, I'm not aware what happens with misters and fans? Wouldn't large box fan moving air over ice work?

 

[Allthefloofs]

Today, it is ungodly hot and humid which is so rare for our climate. This feels like the Eastern Seaboard. Having rare humidity, I'm not aware what happens with misters and fans? Wouldn't large box fan moving air over ice work?

The humidity will kill most of the benefits, you can try it, but evaporated cooling works way better under 50-40% humidity. Just a fan would be good though and I would put the frozen water gallons in too. They basically snuggle up to the frozen jugs and it is cooler in a small radius.

 

[JustBabyMargo]

You could try setting up some icy cold foot baths that they can also drink out of? That’s what seemed to work when it got up to 117 degrees here! We did end up losing one Brahma hen but she got too hot when it was 90 degrees and she had to lay but couldn’t! She died right next to her sister. I think it was too much stress for her. She wouldn’t go outside to cool down because she really needed to lay! She would always pant in the next box though. Something else that helped was setting up some sprinklers for them to run through and to help cool the air and breezes that ran through it. But we also did put out some frozen milk jugs that my ameraucana, Pumpkin, was obsessed with standing on top of! And we froze eggs, corn treats, and giant blocks of ice with blueberries in them! But what I found worked best was making them some icy mash. What I did was fill a bowl with water and ice then add feed into it and mash it all up. I set it on a piece of concrete that we had and put that under the shade and next to the sprinkler. They really seemed to enjoy it and got cooled down by the sprinkler at the same time. I think our Brahma would have been fine if she wouldn’t have had to lay and spent all of her time inside.