Help!!!! triple digit weather in Cali

[winekntrychicks]

Hi All, thanks in advance for your reply. We have hit the 100 mark. Fairly medium to low humidity. How do I keep my chickens cool. My girls are panting and wings out spread and droopy. I brought my 3 Silkies in the house for they are small. What about my 5 month old pullets and 1 rooster???

 

[Psittizen Shikkin]

I go out every few hours and change water and wet down the parts where they like to dust bathe. I make sure there's plenty of shade and if they look too hot then I'll squirt them lightly with the hose.

 

[ozark hen]

I have read on here that some folks freeze gal. milk jugs full of water and then place them inside a trash bag (to keep the jug clean) and place them around the coop. Mine have a box fan hanging in their coop. They also free range so run to the thick shrubs during the heat of the day. I water down those shrubs when it is real hot so it tends to cool them off when they go under them. Plus I give them lots of fresh cool water and cool treats...watermelon, etc.

 

[beakkeeper]

YIKES that's hot.

You can do these things:

1. Put icecubes in their water.
2. Provide shade.
3. Turn your sprinkler or mister onto the lowest setting. They'll love the tiny drops of water on them!

Hopefully they'll adjust

, or the heat will go away. Keep in mind that they may stop laying in weather that hot...

 

[mypicklebird]

See if there are any mister systems left at the local drug store, less water use than sprinklers. If you can find the tubing, you can run it around the edge/fence, if you can find a stand up one, you can stick in near their shade area.
jess

 

[winekntrychicks]

Before I made this original post I went down and hosed off the run. We have lots of airborne predators and ferral cats so they are not allowed to free range. But I did hose down the run so far. I will do the freeze gallons idea and they all ready have a box fan, but all the that seems to do is blow around hot air like a convection oven. They also have a shade tarp and a bamboo blind on the west side of the run. Keep the ideas coming. Thanks. Lisa

 

[Jenski]

When things get hot here in the mid-South, I do several things for my girls:

* Leave heavy casserole dish filled with ice in the yard. Girls can't knock it over, and as it melts they have nice cold water to drink. One of them also likes to walk on the ice before it melts.
* When there is no rain in forecast, I leave a big outdoor fan running at an angle to the run, so they can stand near it or not, as they prefer.
* Have plenty of shade. We put a tarp over the covered run and coop to cut down on rays.
* Exhaust fan inside coop that sucks air to outside. Reduces temp by a few degrees.
* Use old gallon jugs and fruit juice jugs as ice packs ~ we keep a bunch of these in a big freezer in the garage, and I put two jugs in the coop and one or two in the run each day. the girls like to sit on the flatter jugs.
* Electrolytes in water.
* Refrigerated melon slices, grapes, etc. as afternoon snacks.

According to the Gail Damerow Chicken health Handbook death can occur in poultry when temps reach 104 F, although I am hearing from a couple of folks in the southwest who have chickens tolerating 112.

Good luck!

 

[winekntrychicks]

Lots of great ideas, thanks so much for the input.

 

[kinnip]

I've tried the blue freezer packs before. The chickens had no idea what they were supposed to do with them, so I just keep lots of chilled watermelon handy.

 

[ziggy]

We had it about 100/110 here for a bit in June. We don't free range either and it gets really hot at the coop around 3:30-5:30pm.
I put up some misters that I bought at the hardware store on a battery operated yard timer. I put up some shade cloth on the afternoon sun side of the coop on the same side as the misters and had a box fan blowing through the damp shade cloth like a swamp cooler.
Also some pans of water with ice in them.
Watermelon too.
All six made it fortunately.