How to Keep Chickens Cool in Upcoming Heat Wave?

[Kaybee38]

Hello fellow chicken friends - I live in Portland and we are expecting a horrible heat wave this weekend. Temps are going to be over 100 for multiple days, which is not typical for this area. I am worried about my chickens who have definitely never experienced that much prolonged heat. They have shade and I will hose down the grass multiple times and refill their water as often as I can throughout the day, but should I do anything else? I don't have a/c in my home, so I can't bring them inside either. Help!

I would give them watermelon

 

[Kaybee38]

I would give them nice cold watermelon .

 

[pyaresquared]

Hello fellow chicken friends - I live in Portland and we are expecting a horrible heat wave this weekend. Temps are going to be over 100 for multiple days, which is not typical for this area. I am worried about my chickens who have definitely never experienced that much prolonged heat. They have shade and I will hose down the grass multiple times and refill their water as often as I can throughout the day, but should I do anything else? I don't have a/c in my home, so I can't bring them inside either. Help!

 

[Ethanalex]

Hello fellow chicken friends - I live in Portland and we are expecting a horrible heat wave this weekend. Temps are going to be over 100 for multiple days, which is not typical for this area. I am worried about my chickens who have definitely never experienced that much prolonged heat. They have shade and I will hose down the grass multiple times and refill their water as often as I can throughout the day, but should I do anything else? I don't have a/c in my home, so I can't bring them inside either. Help!

Wet towels and put them in the coop.....my girls will lie on those if they are really hot.

 

[PianoTheSilkie]

We got a splash pad from Walmart for 10 bucks, just attached the hose and turned it on low. Also, if you have a good guardian dog, (we do) try leaving the coop doors open all day and night, that way they can come out whenever they like to enjoy the water. Heck, most of my birds just plop down in the middle of the splash pad and enjoy the water on them. Others just dip their toes.

 

[Califas77]

Hello fellow chicken friends - I live in Portland and we are expecting a horrible heat wave this weekend. Temps are going to be over 100 for multiple days, which is not typical for this area. I am worried about my chickens who have definitely never experienced that much prolonged heat. They have shade and I will hose down the grass multiple times and refill their water as often as I can throughout the day, but should I do anything else? I don't have a/c in my home, so I can't bring them inside either. Help!

I am also in heat wave region...we get this every year. Feed the chickens daily, fresh greens, lettuce etc. Watermelon and cucumbers they also love and they are cooling. I put the sprinkler under different bushes each day and rotate this. Make sure they have lot of water vessels to drink from. I bought a spiral mister for them but haven't tried that yet.
All the best...

 

[afieldssnowyegger]

It’s not uncommon for temperatures where I am to be over 100
My hens are perfectly happy in the heat. I just make sure there is plenty of water, shade, and have deep enough water dishes so that they can wet their combs/wattles. Give access to dirt/dust bath. That’s probably (other than water) the #1 thing that helps them cool down.
Sometimes I turn the hose on the misting setting and just spray around the coop for a minute. When the water evaporates it takes the heat with it
Best of luck to y’all

 

[Tshell]

We get temps up to 115 here, and I used to put frozen water bottles in with them to stay cool (they make a mess though, so I stopped that), as well as hosing down surrounding areas, misting them, spraying the dirt, freezing our watermelon rinds to feed during peak time in the day and freezing small blocks of ice to put in their waterers. Everyone has plenty of shade, but they still get hot. I can't really help that, except for making them as comfortable as possible, while keeping areas cool. I also have Jersey giants (the biggest birds) and they are doing fine.

 

[Grateful1]

I'm in Keizer, so we are pretty close. We hit 115 last Monday. Our chickens have a large deep litter run that is essentially beautiful compost. We wet down the entire thing thoroughly, so as the shaded areas change throughout the day the chickens can move. They dig holes and stay blissfully cool. Seriously, they are at times so deep we can't see them from the porch, but we know they are there.

 

[Kriscam]

Hello fellow chicken friends - I live in Portland and we are expecting a horrible heat wave this weekend. Temps are going to be over 100 for multiple days, which is not typical for this area. I am worried about my chickens who have definitely never experienced that much prolonged heat. They have shade and I will hose down the grass multiple times and refill their water as often as I can throughout the day, but should I do anything else? I don't have a/c in my home, so I can't bring them inside either. Help!

From others here and books - I've learned that there are three things that are essential - shade, moving air, and cool water. We just had a week in Eastern Washington that got to 120 in places. We did bring them into the AC garage overnight because it didn't cool down at night. Here are some things that help. A wet towel behind a box fan, a shallow container with water, frozen ice bottles and bricks so they can stand on them and cool their feet, frozen treats every hour or so at the height of the heat, as well as ice in their drinkers - OFTEN! I've had good luck with frozen containers in their coop with a little rechargeable tent fan, as well as one of those mini-swamp coolers with ice in the reservoir. The plastic water containers that screw into the top of a cooler lid work great. My coop is only 4x4 with no natural shade. We also put pop-up tents over their coop & run to keep direct sun off of the roof, with shade cloth on the sides, and misters too. It's a ton of work to keep them cool in this heat!