Hot chickens! Need to cool down!

[AllieJayne]

Hey guys I’m in Australia which is very hot at the moment above 30 degrees Celsius (above 86 degrees Fahrenheit) and my poor chickens are getting really hot I’ve put in frozen berries and other frozen and cold foods as well as ice in their water and frozen water bottles to sit on but I put in a tub of cool water for them to bathe in but they don’t seem interested is there a way to entice them into using it or any other things we can try to cool them down?

 

[LizzzyJo]

The most important thing is shade. Do they have access to shade and fresh cool water?

when it gets over 100°f I have been known to dunk the girls into a water tub. They absolutely hate it - and me- for a while after. But they don’t get heat stroke.

 

[aart]

Ice Chunks and Electrolytes.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/aarts-hot-weather-spiel.75893/

 

[AllieJayne]

The most important thing is shade. Do they have access to shade and fresh cool water?

when it gets over 100°f I have been known to dunk the girls into a water tub. They absolutely hate it - and me- for a while after. But they don’t get heat stroke.

We just went and bought extra hoses to get to the back yard from the front yard and put a sprinkler on their yard as well they also have a shade cloth over the top of their coop and a bamboo shade over the front of it to keep the sun out. They also get mad at me when i put them in the water tub

 

[Morrigan]

Assuming it's a dry heat, I find misters very helpful. I use ones like this:

Hens that don't mind getting wet sit right under it; others sit around the periphery. Last year, we had several days well over 100 degrees and all my chickens -- even a couple of very large broiler hens held back for breeding -- made it.

I also put a pan of water in the a shady spot. A couple liked standing in it, but all and all, the misters were more useful.

 

[Allthefloofs]

I'm in Scottsdale AZ, and we have routine temps of about 46 C or more in the summer, our heat is dry, so we have a couple of evaporative coolers that run in the day and fans that run at night to keep the air moving since it only drops to about 37 at night. We also have a mister like the one shown in the post above. I put a line of misters around the edge of the run as well that face out from the run and I run them on a timer, 20 minutes every hour or two, it keeps things from getting too wet and humid. I freeze water containers or reuse plastic milk jugs and set them out every day in the worst heat and it allows them to cuddle up to them to get cool. Mine also like cold foot baths, just 18" (45 ish cm) planter trays with cool water in them that I change out every day. I give them vitamins and electrolytes twice per week during the heat, they pant a lot and also poop a lot more wet to get rid of the heat. Here I put ice in their waterers too. It's a bit of a full time job here in the summer, but they are worth it.

 

[Allthefloofs]

Oh, man, I can't believe I forgot to say white tarps for shade! That made the biggest difference for us. We had light green ones, and when I replaced everything with white the temp dropped dramatically! I also use some shade cloth in a few spots and spray it with a hose and it works as it's own evaporative cooler. Like I said, it's a full time job here . I've automated a lot of it now so it's not as bad as it was in the beginning.

 

[Josh L.]

I live in Arizona, and when I lived down in Phoenix before moving north, we had a day this past summer where it was about 115°F. We had one chicken die of heatstroke, and another go limp. I brought her back by feeding her water and submerging most of her body in an ice bath until she was back to normal and fiesty as hell over the ice bath situation. 10/10, would recommend the ice-water bath.

 

[mommiesrcool]

Lots of shade, water, electrolytes, water baths, if

get a little tub and fill it up with water and ice and stick your chicken's feet in there its how I cooled down my meat hen during the summer it got to 90 degrees and she was HOT !!!

 

[Anime2lover]

We use shade and a good soaking of their run with the sprinkler, as well as lots of fresh water.