Don't know about y'all, but we're hitting 102 today and 102 again tomorrow. Our two gals Camilla and Nigella are not amused. They're staying in the "cool" spot under the deck, only panting a big during the hottest part of the day. My main concern is that they won't go up to their boxes on the second floor of the coop. They've started laying on the ground floor at the bottom of the ramp! My theory is that it's too hot up there (though it might be that some rodent got up there at some point and now it "smells like squirrel", who the heck knows? One day Camilla did lay upstairs, but it was on the floor, not in her box. We're going to do a complete cleanout of the upstairs this weekend to test the "pollution" theory, but if that doesn't work, what has everyone found to be helpful in terms of cooling off the interior? Mind you, this is a little 2-bird coop, so not a whole lot of room for electronics in there etc. Any and all ideas welcome!
Right now I have a sprinkler on the run over the tarp that is used for shading. I have a box fan running inside the coop. My coop is inside the garage. My neighbor has her coop underneath pine trees, which gives it ample shading. We are going to plant trees this fall to shade the run.
You can get one of the real small fans. We also freeze milk jugs and sit inside coup to cool it off a bit.
Get one of those misters that you put out in the yard or on the deck in the summer - cost about $10. Let it lightly mist your coop. It'll also provide a wet little mud wallow for the girls to paddle in when they get too hot. We put 4 week old meatie chicks out this week, temps 105-109 (not the heat index!). I put a canvas drop cloth over their run & put a mister on that, with the little mudd hole collecting in the corner; a block of Blue Ice in their water; and a fan on the whole works. It's helping them a lot. Good luck! Hope this heat starts breaking up soon, for the sake of all the critters that are enduring it.
I wall mounted a fan in my small bantan coop - just one of those little personal fans. Mine swivels, so I can aim it at the nest boxes during the day, and aim it at the roosts of the night. Other than that - lots of ventilation. It's never too late to break out the jigsaw and add some hw cloth covered window openings (can always be covered w/plexiglass or lexan for winter time). I always suggest sticking a thermometer in the coop - you may discover why they're not laying in there.
Thanks for all the ideas, folks. Truly helpful. I swear, these poor gals would've been dead within a week after they moseyed onto our property if it weren't for BYC! I've got a couple of milk jugs I was about to toss, I'm going to fill them and stick them up in the coop during the day. I actually pelled back the tarp, thinking it might be making it hotter; but I think I'll put it back and turn the garden sprinkler on it for a couple of hours in the hottest part of the day. every little bit will help!
