hen spa? hot hens!

[fowlwoman1]

My hens have been laying as few as 7 eggs a day instead of the normal 15 since the days have gotten so hot. I want to cool them down in hopes that they will lay more. Can you all give me ideas on how I could accomplish this? I guess my biggest question is this: If I freeze pop bottles of water, how do I keep them clean so that I can put them back in the freezer without DH objecting? And would I just place them in the coop where it's the coolest where the hottest hens hang out? And will they huddle next to them or will it just generally cool the air?

 

[panner123]

I have fans in my coops. Grand daughter would have me put in A/C units if she thought about it. Fans will help.

 

[cherrychicken]

to cool off my girls i do 1-all of the following:

put ice cubes in their yard (not the coop because it will get the floor wet.

feed them frozen berries

make sure they have lots of cool water.

im not sure i would put the water bottles back in the freezer after they have touched the chickens

jenny

 

[Judymae]

We have a huge shop fan on them during the day and a smaller fan at nite. I can tell when they are hot because all of the chickies will camp out right in front of the fan! I also give mine frozen grapes and frozen yogurt. I take plain yogurt and spoon it into dixie cups~freeze~ and then peel off the cup. Mine love that!! Sometimes I add strawberries or other fruit. The frozen grapes are their favorite.

 

[fowlwoman1]

so do all these things actually help them lay more eggs in hot weather?

 

[Judymae]

Mine really haven't slowed down all that much. I even have the younger ones starting to lay so it must be doing something good for them.

 

[DawnSuiter]

Quote:
When you take the bottles out of the freezer put them in ziplock bags or something like that... the outter bag will get dirty, and reuse it tomorrow

just place them in the coop, they will hang out near it
or put them in front of a fan to further distribut the coolness

someone here also put them in the bottom of a trash can turned on it's side.. the chicks hung out, inside, and around the "trash cooler"
very cool idea I'll be using too

 

[Moselle]

I will sometimes put out a big bowl of ice cubes with a bit of water in it. They'll drink and peck around in it. Also, I put the hose sprayer on 'mist' and mist them off a bit in the afternoon. I put ice in the chickens' waterers, too. Do they have deep shade in their yard? If not, maybe you could set up a tent or something to give them a good area of shade. My chickens are under some big, shady trees, so even when it's very hot, they can keep somewhat cool in the deep shade; especially if I spray down the grass a bit for them.

Oh, there is someone here who freezes 1/2 or 1/4 watermelons and gives that to the chickens to cool off.

For the bottles in the freezer, maybe you could find a plastic bin or something that will hold just the bottles? It will keep them separated from the food.

 

[arlee453]

We've been having temps near or over 90 degrees most every day since June here.

What helps my girls the most is SHADE. I haven't done anything as far as fans or ice, but they do have great shade on a couple ends of the run, and when it gets REALLY hot they are all hanging out in the shady spaces doing their dirt bath.

I think they scratch up the dirt where they bathe to expose the cooler ground - sorta like turning over your pillow at night to the cooler side.

I HIGHLY recommend building your coop/pen where there is good shade at one end, and open on the other - that way they can SUN bathe when they need to in the winter and SHADE bathe when it's hot in summer!

 

[DouglasPeeps]

Quote:
I second this advice.