It's 100 degrees in the coop

[speckledhen]

I didn't understand that your coop was in the garage. That makes better sense now that you've told us that.

 

[Betsy57]

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There's a difference between a tarp and a shade tarp. The shade tarp allows the air to circulate which helps keep things cool, not just shaded. Check out the web site and the tarps.

They should carry them at Menards or Lowe's. Our neighbors have one for their dog. Are you planning on covering most of your run? I don't know if covering a small protion would create a heat tunnel. I guess I'll figure it out soon.

Thanks again. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what it was called. I kept telling my hubby it was a thick screen material.

I'm going to put it over the coop like an umbrella. Hope you get something for chickens. It is torture to watch the poor things pant and can't do much about it!

 

[Nicole01]

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They should carry them at Menards or Lowe's. Our neighbors have one for their dog. Are you planning on covering most of your run? I don't know if covering a small protion would create a heat tunnel. I guess I'll figure it out soon.

Thanks again. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what it was called. I kept telling my hubby it was a thick screen material.

I'm going to put it over the coop like an umbrella. Hope you get something for chickens. It is torture to watch the poor things pant and can't do much about it!

Oh yes. We currently bought maintenance free lattice and put it on the run, but it's not working. We thought by having the holes, it would be great for ventulation. The holes in the lattice are too large letting the sun shine right in. Right now all the chicks are in the nice air conditioned house during the hot hours until we get adequate shading. The 12 week olds are loving it inside.

 

[cfdf]

Ok so I live in Central Texas and it's HOT HOT HOT here..triple digits. Here's what I am doing. Misters...bought at Tractor Supply "Ocean Breeze" $25.00. I have it running down the middle of my run. I turn it on in the hottest time of the day. I have 2 kiddie pools to wade in...not too deep you don't want any to drown. I have fans going sitting outside the run..pointed inside the run. I give them frozen veggies. I freeze milk jugs of water and place them around the run. The chickens will huddle around them. I have shade cloth covering 2 sides and top of run. Sometime I take a water hose and spray the top of the run letting the water slowy drip through the shade cloth. I installed a swamp cooler in the coop this weekend. It's working like a charm. It has been keeping the coop at 80 degrees....even when it's 104 outside. The chickens and ducks learned real quick to go inside the coop during the hot part of the day. I leave the pop doors open and upper ventilation. I close the door and windows. The cool air also blows out the pop doors and hits them when they are outside. Other than bringing them in the house, this is all I know to do. My chickens are being pampered I know. And I know chickens have been around since the beginnig of time...without being pampered. But, how long did they live in this kind of heat? I prefer to keep mine around for a while. Hopefully this will make their life happier, healthier, and longer.

 

[Nicole01]

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Thank you very much! We have a mister, but I like the looks of the ocean breeze! It would be easy to install in the run. Great, I'll dig in the recycling, grab the milk jugs, fill them with water to throw in the chest freezer. What a great idea! I appreciate this.

. I agree, I'd like to see all my girls live a long life.

 

[stormylady]

I bought a small swimming pool and put 2 fifty lb bags of sand in it. It was so hot today that I went out and wet down the sand some and they spent a good deal of time in it just scratching around keeping there feet cool at least.

 

[Tala]

My problem is that it's 100 in the daytime, but not that warm in the early mornings. If I were to put my chicks outside early as I normally do they'd be fine without a lamp in the day, but a little cool in the mornings and I know the dusk to dawn timer would leave them hanging for a few hours before the sun cranked up. Needless to say, they're enjoying the a/c for at least another week so I can keep them comfortable. hehehehe pampered pullets, right?

 

[krissteff]

It's been very hot here for several days now... upper 90s, 100 and into the 105 heat index. I was so worried about my birds that I kept them in their coop, out of the sun, and with fans running for two days. I would fill whatever containers I had with water and freeze them and switch them out all day long, placing a fan near them to cool the air around it a bit. We tried putting in an old air-conditioner, and we blew a fuse in the shed

so that didn't work. Keeping the sunny side door closed and the fans moving from the back screen door on the shady side kept the coop/shed at 90 degrees. That was much better than the 105 in the sunny coop run.

Today I let them out all day, but I did this: I moved the small fan to the shady side of the run and positioned it into the run so it would blow air from the cooler side of the yard. I put their ice waters on a wooden box in front of the fan. I covered the sunny part of the run with your standard run-of-the-mill green tarp. I gave the run a squirt from the hose and put down wet newspapers, which seemed to provide a cooler place for them to sit. Finally, I gave them some chilled watermelon rind for a frosty treat to keep them hydrated. They did amazing today. They tore up the newspapers, hopped around in front of the fan, and didn't look very uncomfortable at all. Keeping it shaded helped a lot, as did the fan blowing from the shady side.

I'm planning to get a mister for the REALLY hot days. This is just the beginning for us here in the humid south.

 

[Betsy57]

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What's a "swamp cooler"?

 

[turbodog]

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An evaporative cooler. Can be simple or complex but the gist of it is, a device that uses a fan to pull or push air at ambient temperature through water soaked cloth or other absorbing material, resulting in cooler air due to evaporation of the water.