It’s hot. 104!

[Battlepants]

I have a window air conditioner I can put in the coop. Is that extreme? I have a Brahma and an Orpington that will have the hardest time. The rest are Easter Eggers, Welsummers, Wyandotte and Barred Rocks. All take the heat better. I just worry about them at 100 degrees.

I probably wouldn't do that for a couple reasons. First, coops are rarely insulated, so the heat-exchange nature of the AC would be largely wasted here. You might get a few degrees cooled inside the coop, but this would come at the cost of a huge amount of electricity. Second, coops are dusty, so I generally like to avoid anything running on electricity, especially those things that could potentially capture and ignite the dust.

The approach I would suggest is to provide as much shade as possible, in both the coop and around the coop. If you have trees shading the coop, great, but if not, they make shade cloth that could be ran over the coop and run to drastically reduce the overall temperature. Additionally, make sure there is plenty of water around, both for drinking and for wading in. Some chickens may not wade in it, but I've brought a chicken back from suspected heat stroke like this, so I believe it has value. I also like to hose down the top of my coop for evaporation cooling on particularly hot days.

 

[zenstarling]

I try to get my 12 weekers out into deep shade grass areas to forage early before it’s really hot. (CT here, not 100s but high 90s with humidity!). later they hang out under their coop in the shade there, and I use a garden fork to turn the compost in there to expose the cool stuff underneath. they’ll dig down and dust bathe and wait it out. as soon as the run is shaded they start moving around again. they’ll also down as much watermelon as you give them. after witnessing projectile liquid poops I reduced the amount I’ll throw in there at one time!